Of fHlii
"'/,
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE:
DISCOURSES UPON HOLY SCRIPTURE.
JOSEPH PARKER, D.DT, ''^
Minister of the City Temple, Holborn Viaduct, London;
ADTHOR OF "ECCE DEUS," "THE PARACLETE," " THE PRIESTHOOD OF CHRIST,'
•'SPRINGDALE ABBEY," " THK INNER LIFE OF CHRIST," " AD CLERUM,
"the ark of god," "apostolic life," "TYNE CHYLDE,
"WEAVER STEPHEN," " EVERY MORNING," " THK
people's famit.v prayer book,"
ETC-, ETC.
VOL. XII.
THE PSALTER.
NEW YORK:
FUNK & WAGNALLS, Publishers,
18 AND 20 AsTOR Place.
1890.
CONTENTS,
THE PSALTER-
INTRODUCTION TO THE PSALTER
THE TREES OF GOD . ♦
THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST
THE DIVINE PROTECTOR . '
THE QUEST FOR HAPPINESS .
PERSONAL PRAYER AND PRAISE
SORROW AND SUCCOUR .
HUMAN EXPERIENCE
god's glory IN THE HEAVENS
DAVID'S CONCEPTION OF GOD .
THE BOASTING OF THE WICKED
DAVID'S GRAND CREED .
THE IDEAL CHRISTIANITY
THE JOY OF TRUST . .
WITHERED HEARTS . ,
A CITIZEN OF ZION , ,
A MICHTAM OF DAVID . .
A PRAYER OF DAVID . .
GLORIFIED PROVIDENCE.
A GRAND PICTURE OF NATURE
SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE .
THE DIVINE SHEPHERD .
PEACE .....
A FAITHFUL WITNESS , .
I
8
24
34
43
51
57
63
71
80
89
96
105
113
120
125
131
141
149
^59
169
176
181
189
C0NTEN2S.
THE PSALTER {continued)—
THIRSTING FOR GOD
THE GOSPEL OF PROVIDENCE .
THE king's DAUGHTER .
RELIGION NOTHING WITHOUT MORALITY
WORSHIP AND CONFIDENCE .
SELF-COMMUNION ....
PROVOCATION AND IMPRECATION
THE KINGSHIP OF JESUS
TROUBLED BY THOUGHTS OF GOD
day and night leading
angels' IOOD
THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION
THE LAND OF FORGETFULNESS
THE DAYS OF OUR YEARS
A MORNING MEDITATION
VOICES OF CREATION
SPIRITUAL DECLENSION
THE SILENT CHURCH
FALSE RELIGIONS .
HUMAN PILGRIMAGE
GUILTY SILENCE
THE CHARACTER OF GOD AS REVEALED IN THE PSALMS. — 1
THE CHARACTER OF GOD AS REVEALED IN THE PSALMS. — II
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AS REVEALED IN THE PSALMS
THE DESTINY OF THE WICKED AS REVEALED IN THE PSALMS
THE SCOPE OF REVELATION AS SHOWN IN THE PSALMS
"i will" ....
"i know" ....
THE GRAND DOXOLCGY .
"HANDFULS OF PURPOSE*'
INDEX . . ...
PAGE
22 I
233
240
263
272
281
290
3C2
310
318
3^4
hll
341
349
356'
363
371
3S.
350
39S
4cS
416
424
432
439
461
THE PSALTER.
I AM strenuously endeavouring to compress The
People's Bible within twenty-five volumes, and there-
fore I must leave the Psalter almost untouched ; I say
" almost untouched," for even this volume, with all its
closely-printed pages, hardly begins the work of ex-
pounding or amplifying the poetry of the Book of Psalms.
This book alone would afford ample materials for the
whole twenty-five volumes which I proposed to issue
when I conceived the idea of The People's Bible, so
abundant and so rich are its immortal songs. This is
emphatically the heart's own book, which is, indeed, at
once a reason for expansion and condensation. Who
would wish to expand the twenty-third psalm ? Is it
not full to overflow of all sacred emotion and all noble
thought concerning God who is the Shepherd of the
universe ? Yet the twenty-third psalm could be sung
in a hundred different ways, care being taken that the
very variety of its adaptations might not be perverted
into a weakness. We should take care how we try to
vary the music of heaven. All my life long have I revelled
in the Book of Psalms. What can I say about it now .-'
It grows in tenderness. Its thunders were never so
solemn and majestic ; its minor strains never so delicate
and comforting. Every psalm bears its own marks of
inspiration. Human experience has been anticipated
in all its innumerable phases. Is it nothing to have a
VOL. XII. I
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
book which knows the soul through and through, and can
express all its sorrow and all its rapture ? How mountain-
like is the sublime old Hebrew among the languages
of earth ! and how noble its billow-like swell amid the
waves of meaner speech ! David knew me. Asaph is
my bosom friend. Solomon is my confidant. All the
unnamed minstrels are bringing me music from heaven.
I would they might all tarry with me for ever, for in
their society I can know nothing of weariness and nothing
of pain. Under the spell of their genius, oratory becomes
poetry, and the rains of grief are turned into the
rainbows of hope. We know what a great lake is among
the mountains. How it redoubles the scene ! how it
softens all rocks, and makes the shadowed mountains
quiver as with reverent joy ! It is the mirror of the
landscape. So is this Book of Psalms among the books
of the Bible. All the other parts of the Bible are in
the Psalms. There creation is repeated ; there the
wilderness is remembered ; there the Church is out-
lined ; there Christ is born ; there the wail of Calvary
sanctifies all other agony. There, too, is Sinai interpreted
in righteousness, and there the Cross gives welcome to
contrition. The Psalmists were not content to lift up
their own voices in the worship of the Eternal God.
Those voices in the estimation of the Psalmists were too
feeble for the occasion. They must be accompanied —
accompanied by thunders and billows, by organs and
trumpets, by harps and cymbals. It seems as if the
Psalmists could never have accompaniment enough.
They would call all nature to their aid. Whatsoever
had a voice or could make a sound was to be impressed
into the holy service. Yet some amongst us, even at
this late day, object to musical instruments in the
sanctuary ! Such objection is valid, if we never get
beyond the instrument : if we are fascinated by the sound
of brass, or the quiver of prepared chords ; but if the
instrument is used to multiply ourselves, to give us
a larger personality, to find for us a vaster, grander, and
THE PSALTER.
tenderer expression, then is the musical instrument not
our master, but our servant. Pitiable is the objection
to musical instruments in aiding the public worship of
God. To object to them is to show an utter ignorance of
their scope and purpose. God has so constructed the
universe that every star and every flower, every hill and
every stream, shall contribute to swell the anthem of
his praise.
I can picture a wonderful assembly around the
Psalter. There are the saints who love the Lord, and
are in quest of speech fit for the expression of all that
belongs to him in the way of adoration and praise.
Nowhere else can they find similar expression. All that
is noble and all that is tender can be found here. Every
name by which the Lord was ever known to ancient
history is repeated in this solemn and impressive music.
The English cannot do without the Hebrew : the Gentile
is dependent on the Jew. In every particular, salvation
is of the Jews ; in our sublimest moods we flee to the
Hebrew Scriptures for the only language that can give
fit utterance to our noble and saintly rapture. Not only
are the saints gathered around the Book of Psalms, but
sinners also congregate with tears and sighs, that they may
seek the Lord, and find words fit for the expression of
broken-heartedness. The fifty-first psalm is the prodigal's
highway back to pardon, to heaven, to God. How far
soever human speech may go in the invention of expres-
sions designed to set forth the depth and agony of contri-
tion, it can never get beyond what we find in this wail of
the heart, — this solemn outburst of sorrow and bitterness
of soul on account of individual transgression. With
the saints and the sinners there come a whole multitude
of sorrowful souls; each knowing its own bitterness,
and feeling the weight of its own burden ; each feeling
that the Psalms were written for his particular case,
so exquisite is their thought, so tender their expression,
so complete and soul-subduing their conception and
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
vision of God. Add to all this host those who are
dumb in soul, men who are speechless on account of
grief, and you will complete the host_ of readers and
inquirers gathered in eagerness and gratitude around this
music of the heart. It is along this line that I find proofs
of the true unity of the race. What unity may be
established by merely physical considerations it is open
to science to determine. The spiritual student discovers
lines of unity in the moral region which can never be
destroyed. To think that thousands of years ago our
deepest experiences were uttered for us ! To think that
in all countries the heart has felt the same agonies, borne
the same burdens, wept the same tears, and cried out
in various accents for the same deliverance ! In the
Psalms we find the real meaning of inspiration. This
question does not turn upon dates, localities, mere
personalities of a transient kind, but upon instruction
which covers the whole breadth of human ignorance, and
upon consolation which touches every quivering fibre
of human sorrow. All this accounts for the Bible's
growing influence. Not because the Bible tells men
about distant lands and now archaic habits, but because
it addresses the soul in all its sorrows, aspirations,
desires, and bitternesses, because the Bible, or the
Psalter in particular, brings messages to those who
have lost all light and all hope, the Bible will remain for
ever the supreme book and the supreme influence in
literature.
The whole Bible may be said to be condensed into
the Book of Psalms. Everything is related in poetry.
All the plainest and least poetical works are turned into
music. The Book of Job is repeated in the Book of
Psalms In Job we find the concrete and the personal,
the intensely dramatic and realistic ; yet in the Psalms
we find the same personalities represented, the same
devil, the same upright souls, the same temptations,
the same fears, and the same ultimate deliverance.
THE PSALTER.
Whether we read Job or the Psalms, we are in reality
reading the same book. This observation holds good even
of the Book of Proverbs. The Psalter is set between
Job and the Proverbs in our canon ; and account
for it as we may, that would seem to be the best
place for it. Nearly all the Proverbs are in some
form in the Psalter. It seems to be the function
and prerogative of poetry to take up all history, all
proverbs, all moral maxims, and all commonplaces of
human intercourse, and ma£;nify and sublimate them into
poetical expression. Can such singers be dead t Were
they but so many songsters, like nightingales in the
darkness, singing to human sorrow .'' and are they now
dead, extinct, annihilated .-' It is impossible to believe
this. To such singers, music was no mere enjoyment.
It was an instrument by which they communicated divine
revelation to human listeners. It was the soul in its
highest raptures. It was the intensest enjoyment which
the human can hold with the divine. Other music comes
and goes, changing its fickle fashion without reason and
without defence, but this solemn, glorious, booming music
rolls on night and day, through all the centuries of human
evolution. The men who sang such songs must be
living ; their immortality cannot be limited to their music.
Would we could live in this Psalter all the rest of our
days ! We need it every word, and we need every word
every hour. By various figures could our enjoyment be
represented. We should be as men called to reap the
largest harvest ever grown in the vineyards of earth. We
should be as those privileged to hear spiritual music
stealing down upon us from the hidden places of the sky.
We should be as prodigals to whom the word of pardon
and of love is being spoken in ever-varying tones, yet
with such definiteness that the heart can never miss the
sweet and healing message. In the Psalms we need find
no controversy. In the music of the Church all con-
troversy should be hushed. When men lecture, or preach,
or discourse in any form, they provoke more or less
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
intellectual indignation on the part of those who listen
to them ; but when the noble psalm or sweet hymn is
being sung all controversy is silenced, and alienation
is forgotten in brotherhood. When we are puzzled,
therefore, by other portions of Scripture, and are inclined
to high debate, and even to furious contention, let us
suspend the angry combat, and go into the Psalter,
that we may find a music which will reconcile us and
unite us in holiest love. Blessed be God for the Psalter.
It seems to have been written in our mother tongue. It
is a calendar which we can consult every day in the year,
and for every day of the year find some bright motto,
some gentle speech, some anticipative gospel.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, surely thou hast laid up for us in thy law a store of good
things: give us tlie hearing ear, the seeing eye, the understanding heart,
that none of thy treasures be wasted upon us. We have heard the words
of the wise, and behold they are as nails fastened in a sure place : may we
receive the same and order our life according to them, that being found in
the way of wisdom we may also walk in the paths of pleasantness and find
enjoyment and peace as we advance from step to step. We have heard also
the words of thy dear Son, our only Saviour : we beseech thee to make a
highway to our feet for the progress of his kingdom, that it may be set up
there in all its grandeur, strength, and infinite graciousness and beauty.
May we be the subjects of his crown, citizens of his kingdom, followers of
his captaincy, and may the royalty of his strength and grace rule us with
a sweet and welcome compulsion. We rejoice that, though he was equal
with the Father, he was, found in fashion as a man; and being found in
fashion as a man, he opened his mouth in parables and revealed the
ancient secrets, and set up the kinglom of heaven upon the earth. We
bless thee for its largeness; we thank thee that we all may find a place
. within the enclosure of thy sanctuary ; may none be left outside, may the
citizenship of heaven include every one of us — so shall there be in our heart
a spring of joy which can never fail.
Great are the riches of thy house, and wondrous the lights which play
upon our life as we wait upon thee in the sanctuary. We see afar, we are
no longer bounded by things visibl", we are not prisoners of time and space,
we are called by an emancipating voice into infinite liberty — yea, the
freedom of thy children is glorious freedom — enable us to walk in it, without
licence, enjoying thy revelations, living upon thy grace, eatng thy word
with a devouring appetite, and finding all our strength and rest and deep
content in thy holy word.
We have come to bless thee for all thy care : we will not restrain our
speech before thee, but let our hearts run out after thy mercy in grateful
and ardent appreciation. Pardon all our sin. If our sin is great thy grace
is greater, and thou dost not grudgingly but abundantly pardon. Thou wilt
magnify the Cross in our forgiveness ; yea, thou wilt make glad the heart of
Christ by the overflowing pardon with which thou wilt answer our cry for
pity and release. Chasten the strong, encourage the weak, sanctify those of
us who are struggling after better experience; save the young from tempta-
tion, and by the way of the Cross do thou bring us all to thy dwelling-place
on high, even to thy holy Jerusalem, whose streets are of pure gold, the
gates whereof shall not be shut at all by day : for there shall be no night
there. Amen.
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm
Psalm i.
[Note. — This is regarded as a concise introduction to a limited Psalter,
and not as the introduction to the whole Book of Psalms. The authorship
of the psalm is uncertain. In some MSS. it is regarded simply as a preface,
and in others it is connected with the second psalm. According to some
MSS., in Acts xiii. 33, the second psalm is quoted as the first. Some pecu-
liarities of language, as well as the general tone of thought, are considered
to point to Solomon as the author, whilst some words seem to bring it to
a later period than David's. Probably it was written before the disruption
of Israel, or at least before the decadence of the kingdom of Judah.]
1. Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he
meditate day and night.
3. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth
forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever
he doeth shall prosper.
4. The ungodly are not so : but are like the chaff which the wind driveth
away.
5. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in
the congregation of the righteous.
6. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous : but the way of the
ungodly shall perish.
THE TREES OP GOD.
" Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor
standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful"
(ver. l).
WE might suppose that this statement, both on the one
side and on the other, amounted to nothing more than a
mere assertion of individual opinion. It might be imagined, on
a superficial examination of the circumstances, that some man
had ventured to give it as his opinion that the godly man would
be blessed, and that the ungodly man would fail of blessing.
This is not matter of opinion ; this is matter of law, matter of
historical necessity. Moreover, the statement — if it be only a
statement — is open to immediate contradiction if it be not con-
firmed and illustrated by the history of mankind. This gives us
a very solid standing-ground in our study. Opinion is free, and
opinion cannot raise itself above the line of discussion ; it must
always be subject to criticism and to controversy. But this is
not matter of mere opinion ; this is the result of the inductive
Psalm i.] THE TREES OF GOD. 9
process, this is the outcome of law, this is the upgathering of"
vast and minute experience. If it is not that, how easy the con-
tradiction ! how tempting the field of action, in which an infant
may become a soldier, and the man of feeble speech may over-
whelm with the evidence of fact all the sophisms of the most
eloquent orator ! Thus we are upon very solid ground. If the
first psalm is not true, every one amongst us can disprove it.
The appeal is to life, to fact, to actual circumstance and condition.
The ungodly man, therefore, may stand up and say — not in the
individual instance or within narrow lines, but literally the un-
godly humanity may stand up and say, — The first psalm is a lie :
I am happy, I am blessed ; I am ungodly, and yet I thrive, in the
best sense of the term ; I fear not God, I regard not man, I am
the centre of my own movement, I supply the motives pf my
own action, I give account only at the door of my own under-
standing and conscience, and I enjoy eternal midsummer in the
soul : nature is to me one crystal beauty, one sparkling delight,
one sufficing benediction ; I know not God, and I am perfectly
happy. If one ungodly man were foolish enough to make that
speech, ten thousand of his race would instantly rise to modify
his statement, if not positively to contradict it. The godly man
will niake his speech on the other side ; he will not fail of
emphasis, he will have no modification or reservation, but will
say broadly, with sacred unction and telling firmness of tone, —
The first psalm is a truth ; I have in some measure lived it,
proved it, illustrated it: loving God, I am happy; living in God,
I am safe ; obeying God, I am at rest ; any failure in result is
traceable to failure in process. The first psalm, therefore, in
its substance, meaning, purport, is a holy and incontrovertible
declaration. We should look upon all the Scriptures from this
point of view. The Scriptures are not filled with opinions. We
may frankly admit that sometimes the mere construction of the
sentence might suggest that an opinion was being adventured ;
but, -as a matter of fact, there are no opinions in the Bible. The
Bible, in its doctrines, is a book of facts. Everything that is
theological in the Bible is first scientific, historical, actual. When
the Scriptural writers talk about " the law of the Lord," they
speak about something they have been watching a long time :
they have seen one instance, and have wondered if another
10 TBE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm i.
instance like it would occur; the second instance has transpired,
and a third, and a twentieth, and a hundredth instance of the
kind, and again another hundredth ; and as the instances have
multiplied themselves in such continuity and confirmatory succes-
sion, the watchers have said, — This is a law ; and when they
have written out what appears to be a matter of mere opinion,
they have in reality set down with a steady hand the result
of a lifetime of observation, confirmed by the experience of
innumerable generations. The Book of Proverbs is not a book
of opinions. When a proverb is written down a history is
written down. We open the Book of Proverbs, and we find this
sentence : " Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging ; and
whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise." That is not a
matter of opinion, a matter of sentiment, — some man's conjecture
about something he does not really understand. "Wine is a
mocker," — that is history; "strong drink is raging," — that is a
fact; "whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise," — a million
hands are uplifted to carry the vote, and there is no reply. Open
the Book of Proverbs where we may, we shall find that we are
not reading an opinion in reading a proverb inspired. Here is
one : " A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her
that bare him." Why, it could be contradicted instantly if it
were not true ; but humanity stands up and says, — W^hoever
told you that, told you in a sentence the history of innumerable
broken hearts. So with all the Scriptures. If we suppose that
in the Bible we have simply matters of opinion, then we are
bound to controvert them, examine them, subject them to critical
analysis to find out how much, if any, truth there is in them.
If the text-book were a mere collection of miscellaneous opinions
it would be useless to the preacher. When he opens the Bible
he opens what is termed the law. He confirms it, or he could
not preach it; his hearers confirm it, or they could not listen
to it. Mere opinions would either divert or distract the mind,
would vex and torment the intellect ; but words that come with
the massiveness and the solemnity of history, and gather them-
selves up into all the sternness of actual law, come with a force
which for the moment we may resist, but which in the long run
we must accept. All these general observations we establish by
the testimony and illustrate by the spirit of this first psalm. Let
Psalm L] TBE TREES OF GOD. ii
us read the word : the very reading of it may be an argument ;
it may compel such a tone in the very enunciation of it as shall
itself accomplish all the work of formal reasoning.
" Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord ; and in his law doth he meditate
day and night " (vers. I, 2).
What say you ? Do you write a negative verdict over the
face of that decision ? Is there a man who loves the darkness,
serves the devil, pants for hell, who could deny that, — a man
so lost that he could deny the opening verses of the first psalm ?
We cannot tell what they feel who have gone over the brink
and fallen into the fire and the brimstone, by which future
punishment is at all events symbolised to our dull imagination ;
but one instance is given in parable from which large inferences
may be drawn. The man who was tormented in the flames
said : I have five brethren — send to them ; keep them out of
this place, save them if it be possible I That was a parable, but
it finds an answer in every human consciousness. The father
says when he is most lost, — Spare my child the sight of this
shame ! do not let my son follow my example ! I have wasted
my substance with riotous living — may no child of mine follow
his father's evil example 1 That we have heard from human
lips ; that we have not read in some Jewish book five thousand
years old : it is written in the journals of the day ; it is to be
met in the groans that rise from unhappy civilization at this
moment ; it is the testimony of humanity. What can the
ungodly, the sinner, or the scornful have by way of blessing ?
Their position is a negative one, or a position of resistance ;
and their spirit is a spirit of blasphemousness and flippancy.
There is no rest in blasphemy ; there is no contentment in
flippancy. The scorner'is no friend of good men. Any man
who could indulge a sneer at the Bible is a bad man. We can
imagine men who have great intellectual difficulties and literary
difficulties of many kinds reverently closing the old book and
saying nothing more about it — being dumb evermore ; but the
man who can turn the Bible into a subject for jesting and foolish
speaking and sneering is in his heart bad. He may pay twenty
shillings in the pound, he may have amongst citizens a good
12 THE PEOPLE'S bible:. [Psalm i.
and honest name ; but if he can sneer at the book which is
the corner-stone of our best Hfe, that sneer makes him a base
man, and he will break down at some point and reveal himself
as a child of the devil. We are not referring to intellectual
doubt — of real earnest difficulty ; nor to those who are really
anxious to have certain great questions solved ; we refer only
to the scornful, the sneering, the jibing, — those who turn sacred
mysteries into occasions of trifling ; those who sneer at the
little child on bent knees, with clasped hands, and with eyes
that look up to the motherly heavens ; — it is of the man belong-
ing to that class we speak, and speak solemnly, with tears
in the heart, and without bitterness or resentment ; and in the
name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, whom
we adore as one God, we pronounce him to be a bad man.
Appearances shall not deceive us; occasional tones in the voice
shall not divert the concentration of our inquiry and our
judgment, — he is a bad man. The drunkard may be nearer
heaven's kingdom than he can ever be : he has blasphemed
against the Holy Ghost.
But the " blessed man " not only avoids and abandons, as
it were with horror, the ungodly, the sinful, and the scornful ; —
that is the negative aspect ot the case. What is the affirmative ?
We find that in the second verse : " His delight is in the law
of the Lord ; and in his law doth he meditate day and night."
We must have positive sustenance. It is not enough to shut
up the bad book — we must have the good book in its place;
it is not enough to desist from eating bad food — we must have
the pure and honest bread to eat; it is not enough to abandon
the seat of the scornful ; it is not enough to give up drinking
and to long for it all the time, because then in our very longing
we may be a kind of drunkard still : we must be filled with
the Spirit of God— dispossession followed by possession ; libera-
tion followed by inspiration, — the outcast devil finding his place
occupied when he returns to reconquer his victim. Why have
we such incertitude in Christian persuasion and such inconstancy
in Christian life ? Because we have lost the Bible. We do not
read it : we glance at it ; we read a verse or a paragraph now
and then, but we do not eat it — devour it — consume it. We
Psalm i.] THE TREES OF GOD. 13
have Bibles : we ourselves should he Bibles. Let the word of
God dwell in you richly — " it is written " : yes, and " it is written
again," and yet " again." Who really knows the law of the
Lord ? Who meditates in it day and night ? Who so does
is a blessed man : he eats at the king's table, he listens to the
king's music, he lives in the king's light. It matters not that
we may be able to quote large portions of the Bible — for it is
just possible that a man may recite the entire record from the
first chapter of Genesis to the Amen of the Apocalypse, and
know nothing about the Bible. We must get at the Bible that
is in the Bible — at the music that is in the notes ; there stand
the black and white notes : we know the name of each, we
know the duration of each in music-time, we can speak
learnedly about the notes ; but where is the music itself —
the singing in the soul — the resonance which only the spirit
can hear ? Where the all-spiritual realisation of the thought ?
.It is not enough to be chapter-and-verse readers; it is not
enough to be happy and rich in literal quotation ; these gifts
of memory we do not despise, we would rather covet them ;
but apart from the spiritual perception of meanings they are
worse than useless. The Bible is not a text, the Bible is not
a chapter, the Bible is not a book of chapters ; the Bible is a
revelation. And where does a revelation begin? — where human
nature begins. Where does a revelation end ? — where Mel-
chisedek ended. What is the measure 01 a revelation ? — it has
none. Is it a fixed quantity ? — yes, as infinity is a fixed quantity.
Does it acquire the weariness of a long monotony ? — never !
What is it, then ? — a continual surprise. A man says, when
you take him out upon a dull grey day to look at the landscape,
and you tell him that he really cannot see it now, that he can
imagine the light playing upon it, — no ! no man can imagine
light. Could the sun at the moment of the man's supposed
imagining break forth from behind the cold grey cloud and
leap upon the landscape, making it gleam and sparkle and
awakening all the silent birds, then the man would find that
his imagination was not equal to the mystery of God. So the
Bible, being a revelation, is a continual surprise. It brightens
upon the mind, charms the fancy ; it satisfies all the innermost
desires of the spirit; it fills the soul with sweet content; — a
14 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm i.
surprise every morning, a benediction every night. It is
impossible for me to convey any sense adequate to the occasion
of the manner in which the book of God grows upon me every
year of my life. It is my best friend. Would that I could tell
you all it tells me ! Would that some arrangement could be made
by which a preacher could instantaneously summon his audience
and preach when the fire stings him and all the angels stir him
into the passion for preaching ! Oh that men would simply
make the law of the Lord their delight, and meditate in it
day and night! What preaching we should have then! A
word would be a sermon ; a sermon would be a library ; one
hint would start the mind upon infinite ranges of thought and
contemplation. A prepared pew would make a prepared pulpit ;
but a prepared pulpit can never make a prepared pew. Given
an audience, earnest, longing, impatient of all process and
detail, and then one spark — one little spark — falling on the
prepared material, behold, the answer of the people would be as
the blaze of an altar-fire, rising instantly to the great, watching,
healing heavens ! You cannot disturb permanently the man
who is rooted in Biblical doctrine and Biblical thought. Many
a man supposes that when he shakes a tree he is shaking the
root. Sometimes it appears as if the wind would tear up the
deep roots of the great trees. It is not so in all instances.
The root is deeper than the strength of the wind can reach.
What is true in many instances in the forest is true in many
instances in the Church : if our roots are deep-struck into
divine soil, we may be shaken : the branches may creak, a few
leaves will be blown off — ay, a few twigs may be splintered and
shivered ; but the tree — the great life-tree — is safe at the root,
because the root is hidden in the wisdom and protected by the
eternity of the living God.
"And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth
forth his fruit in his season ; his leaf also shall not wither ; and whatsoever
he doeth shall prosper " (ver. 3).
A man's life should be rooted in God — in God's law, in God's
service. It should not be as a flower plucked, but as a flower
unplucked, growing in the eternal stream. Where God is there
js no famine. A life severed from God's law cannot grow,
Psalm i.] THE TREES OF GOD.
cannot be at rest; it will be the victim of circumstances,
affrighted by surprises, and disquieted by many fears. The
good man — the student and servant of God's law — is not only
like a tree, he is like a tree planted by rivers of water. So
long as the rivers run his roots are nourished ; he lives in the
great scheme and system of things ; no vagrant is he, but a citizen
and a householder. His likeness unto a tree planted by the
rivers of water is full of suggestion : a tree is permanent, fruitful, i
beautiful ; its branches are for refreshment, and its shadow for
rest ; it answers the sun and rain ; it waits for God, and puts
forth its life at his bidding. Notice the word " prosper " : that
word is used in no mean or narrow sense, but refers to a pros-
perity that is real, ultimate, and unchangeable. If we say that
the good man does not always prosper, we may say the same
thing in effect about God himself The good man prospers as
God prospers. God complains that his law is slighted and his
word disobeyed ; yet he says that his law shall be set up in the
earth, and that his word shall not return unto him void. Some
adversities are temporary ; they may indeed be part of a process ;
as truly as God prospers will the good man prosper, — their pur-
poses are identical. The circumstances which suggest that the
good man's prosperity is uncertain are like the hills and valleys
which suggest to our limited vision that the earth cannot be a
globe. We know, however, that all the bids and valleys fall
under a higher law, an infinite astronomy. We have just said
that where God is there is no famine. These words may be
taken in their widest sense, as relating to the intellect, the
imagination, and every faculty which belongs to manhood.
When there is no bread in the field, yet is there a great feast in
the heart. When the fig-tree ceases to bear, the hunger of the
soul is satisfied with fruit from the tree of life. Jesus Christ said
he had bread to eat that the world knew not of. He laid down
the greatest possible doctrine of the sustenance of man when he
said: " Man shall not live by bread alone," — God has a thousand
ways of sustaining life : every word which proceedeth out of his
mouth is a living word and a way of life to those who receive it.
Thus in the deepest sense of the words we live and move and
have our being in God ; not a limited and stunted being, starved
and hungered because of the spareness of God's bounty, but a
l6 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm i.
being as enduring as his own, and made secure by all the resources
of his throne and Godhead.
A very practical lesson arises from the words " bringeth forth
his fruit in his season." We are not to look even in Christian life
for what is ordinarily understood by " fruit " all the year round.
Upon this point many Christians disquiet themselves unnecessarily.
There is a time for rest, for recruital ; and time spent in legitimate
sleep is time made for larger and harder work. Let the tree be
the symbol and image of our life. It has its season of fruitlessness,
but not of fruitlessness in any blameworthy sense. The tree is
part of the great course of things — a speck in an infinite system —
and it keeps all the time and law of the stupendous universe. So
it is with the Christian heart. There are times of abundant
labour, of almost excessive joy, ot hope above the brightness
of the sun, and of realisations which transform the earth into
heaven : there are times when our energy seems to be more than
equal to all the exigencies of life : we can work without weariness,
we can suffer without complaining ; we are quite sure that the
morning draweth nigh, and that in the end the victory will be
with God. At other times there are seasons of depression, almos
intolerable weariness, somewhat indeed of sickness of heart, as it
a great pain had fixed itself within us ; at other times we know
that we are not bringing forth fruit to the glory of God or for
the use of man, and in such times we call ourselves cumberers
of the ground, and urge our idleness against ourselves with all
the force of a criminal accusation. The Christian should deal
with himself reasonably in all these things. The year is not one
season, nor is human life one monotonous experience. A tree
may be by the rivers of water, and may be planted even by the
hand of God himself, and yet there will be portions of the year
when not a leaf can be seen on its branches, and when no fruit
is offered to the hunger of man. We are not to be judged by this
or that one day or season, but by the whole scope and circum-
ference of life. As to the promise " whatsoever he doeth shall
prosper," we come upon unwritten but inevitable assumptions
and conditions. The character is the guarantee of the action.
Read by itself, "whatsoever he doeth shall prosper" is marked
by an apparent wildness, as if it would be impossible for a man
Psalm L] THE TREES OF GOD. 17
to attempt anything that would not be instantly turned in
the direction of his wishes. It is our reading, however, that
would be wild, not the inspired words that would be without
licence ; we must remember that a certain quality of character is
described in the psalm. The portrait is that of a " man that
walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way
of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful ; " but whose
"delight is in the law of the Lord," and in his law doth this man
" meditate day and night ; " we are therefore first of all to fix our
attention upon the quality of the character described, and then
we are to read "whatsoever he doeth shall prosper:" such a
man cannot do anything wilfully wrong ; such a man cannot tempt
the providence of God ; such a man cannot project himself into
his plans so far as to exclude the general welfare and the honour
of the divine throne ; such a man is all but identical with God
in thought and purpose and love, and therefore his personal
prosperity is as secured as is the prosperity of every divine
principle and purpose.
"The ungodly are not so : but are like the chaff which the wind driveth
away " (ver. 4).
Who can gather again the chaff which has been driven away ?
Where is it? whose is it? who will claim it? who will buy
it? who will care for it? But there are appearances to the
contrary. Some ungodly men seem to be well-established : they
have property, they have influence, their eyes stand out with
fatness ; they have more than heart can wish. What are we
to make of such circumstances and realities, for realities they
certainly appear to be to the casual observer ? We are to
remember that appearance is one thing, and reality is another.
At a little distance the chaff might be mistaken for wheat. We
are to remember also that the Bible itself recognises what we
mistake for realities : comments upon them, explains them, and
makes them of no account in the measurement and valuation of
God's providence. The prosperity of the wicked has never
escaped the attention of good men ; it has made some of them
stumble; it has been turned into an argument against a dis-
criminating providence ; nay, more, it has been used as an
illustration to prove that if God is more than usually mindful of
VOL. XII. 2
1 8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm i.
any of his creatures, he seems to have set the seal of his special
approbation upon men of worldly mind. Here we are thrown
back upon the quality of character. We must make the well-
known distinction between character and reputation. Character
is what a man really is in his very heart and thought ; reputation
is what the man is thought to be by those who are associated
with him, or who observe his method of life, or estimate the
success which may have attended his labours. The distinction
between the godly and the ungodly must be vital. Such is the
distinction between wheat and chaff; in wheat there are harvests
for generations through all time, in chaff there is nothing but
emptiness and rottenness. We do not always discover quality
by a superficial inspection. Character must be put to the severest
tests before its real value can be ascertained. We cannot regard
painted ships as of any value for purposes of navigation. Not
v»rhat a horse is upon the artist's canvas, but what he is on the
battle-field, must be the standard of value. Not in form but in
power must be the continual rule of criticism and judgment.
There may be a beauty of form without any beauty of inspiration;
all merely formal beauty becomes monotonous and oppressive ;
it is the light within that makes day; it is the inspiration of the
understanding that gives men clear discernment of the times and
distinct mastery ot events. The wheat and the chaff come very
near to one another ; they may at a little distance be mistaken
one for the other. But every man's character should be tried ;
every man's work shall have the test of fire applied to it; and
not until such final tests have been applied can we really tell, in
some instances, which is good and which is bad. Driven by the
wind, carried here and there, without soul or force of their own ;
— to know whose they are we must know where the wind is —
the wind of popularity, the wind of success, the wind of divine
visitation. What mocking words are applied to the ungodly
man ! The Bible everywhere treats him with contempt. It sees
him in great power, spreading himself like a green bay tree, and
then it declares that he cannot be found, yea though he be
searched for in the soil where he grew, not a fibre of his roots can
be discovered. The life of the hypocrite is described as a candle
which has to be blown out, and which shall leave only an
intolerable odour behiad. The bad man's house is represented
Psalm i.] THE TREES OF GOD. 19
as founded upon the sand, and its doom is foretold. Never do
we find anything of sohdity, real value, or true praise connected
with the bad man's name in all the Biblical record. Nor is this
a merely metaphysical criticism on the part of the Bible ; we
know it of our own observation and experience to be a true
judgment of fact. Who would employ a man who was known
to be really bad at heart ? Who would rely upon him ? Who
would trust him with property ? Who would consult him in
perplexity ? The bad man may be used for temporary purposes :
he may be turned into a mere convenience, but even the men
who use him despise him, and as soon as the purposes of con-
venience have been completed the instrument is thrown away.
The ungodly man can have no true friends. Though he form
truces with his associates and enter into covenants signed and
sealed and marked by all the appearance of solidity they will be
as nothing in the day of temptation and trial. Ungodliness can-
not stand ; it has no virtue, strength, or pith ; it is the creature of
circumstances ; it is an accident of the weather ; it is driven about
by the wind.
" Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in
the congregation of the righteous " (ver. 5).
These are the true and final tests of character. Put into the
hands of a sower a handful of chaff and a handful of wheat, and
can the former " stand " in his judgment ? Mark, there is a
judgment ! There is a congregation of the righteous ! At
present judgment is partial and uncertain, and at present society
is mixed ; but the time of judgment and separation is coming !
Man soon comes to .the end of his probation. Where are the
ungodly of the last generation? What impression is produced
by the recollection of their names, — a recollection of self-will,
self-indulgence, self-promotion; not a recollection of purity,
wisdom, sj'mpathy, or noble service ? Words of this kind show
that society is organised by its Creator, and is not left in tumul-
tuousness, without order, direction, or final outcome. The words
"judgment" and "congregation" point to conditions of an ultimate
kind. Regard life as chaotic, without law, order, or purpose,
and then verily the race will be to the swift and the battle to the
strong. Everything depends upon the point of view from which
20 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm i.
life is surveyed. To the man who is without God in the world
life is a scramble, or a series of chances, or a mere department
of gambling, no one knowing who may be first to-morrow or who
may win in the impending contest: principles go for nothing;
convictions are laughed at; prayer is despised. But has history
justified this view of life ? Has our own personal history justi-
fied it? The answer is instantaneous, emphatic, and complete.
Appearances notwithstanding, it is still clear to the observing
mind that human history has shape, direction, and purpose; it
is a marvellous unity ; its very complexity cannot destroy its
order ; at the heart of things there is a thought, a determination,
a divine decree. Taking, therefore, this view of the case, we
see the high and solid reasoning of the text, — " Therefore the
ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the con-
gregation of the righteous." This outcome is noted as a simple
sequence. It is not an arbitrary arrangement or a penalty
inflicted without a cause; it is the logical outcome of certain
moral processes ; evil leads to disappointment, misery, and per-
dition ; — good leads to satisfaction, enjoyment, and heaven. If
this were the voice of the Bible only men might quibble about
it and propose certain difficult questions in relation to it ; but
we see the outworking of this law in social life, and are prepared
to confirm it according to the variety and extent of our own
experience. Let us not regard words of this kind merely as
petty warnings or as having in them any tone of vindictiveness,
as if God simply by the exercise of his almightiness determined
to have his own way at last. This is not a question of mere
power at all. It is a question of moral force, moral quality, and
moral triumph. Written all over the universe in every depart-
ment of nature and providence and revelation is the sublime law
that the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment, but
the righteous into life eternal, — not an arbitrary division of
classes, but a philosophical, moral, and sublime realisation of the
mysterious processes which are known by the names of cause
and eftect.
" For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous : but the way of the
ungodly shall perish " (ver. 6).
The question is not whether the righteous is apparently stronger
than the ungodly, but what is the relation of the Lord to them
Psalm L] . THE TREES OF GOD. 2\
both? The final award is not with man but with God. The
destiny of the righteous and the ungodly is as distinct as their
characters. There is no blending of one into the other, — the one
lives, the other perishes. Consistently throughout the Bible life
is always associated with obedience or righteousness, and death
with disobedience or unrighteousness. Upon this point the Bible
bears no equivocal or doubtful testimony. The voice of the Lord
is one from the beginning to the end of his testimony. Great
value attaches to a consistency of this kind. Consider that the
records of the Bible extend over thousands of years and relate
to every variety of human disposition and social circumstance;
consider further that the Bible is the joint production of numerous
writers who in many cases knew nothing of what the others had
written, and then remember that from beginning to end the face
of the Lord is represented as set against evil, and shining like a
benediction upon good ; and say if there be not in this very con-
sistency itself, at least the beginning or suggestion of a noble
argument. The consistency has a bearing upon the character of
God himself It is because he never changes in his own moral
quality that he never changes in relation to the actions of men.
In his first interview with man he spoke of life and death; in
the final judgment of the world life and death will be the two
categories under which the human race will be classified. That
" the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous " is the good man's
supreme comfort, " He knoweth the way that I take : when he
hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold." At first it might
appear as if the knowledge of the Lord were a terror to the good
man, whereas, on the contrary, it is the noblest comfort which
sustains him. Not that the good man challenges the divine
scrutiny in the matter of his actions, but that he is able to invite
the Lord to look into the secret purpose of his heart and under-
stand what is the supreme wish of his life. The Apostle Peter
represents this truth in a manner most pathetic : " Lord, thou
knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee." Peter was
not here calling attention to his personal life, which was full of
blunder and of shame, but was calling attention to the one
purpose and uppermost desire of his life. That is a consolation
always open to the good man. To know that the motive is right
is to know that the end must be good. "When my spirit was
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm i.
overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path." "I am
the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine."
The Apostle Paul has a noble figure upon this matter : — " The
foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord
knoweth them that are his." The prophet Nahum bears testi-
mony to this great truth, saying, " The Lord is good, a strong-
hold in the day of trouble ; and he knoweth them that trust in
him." What we have to be supremely anxious about is the
main purpose or desire of life ; that being right, actions will
adjust themselves accordingly, and, notwithstanding innumerable
mistakes, the substance of the character shall be good, and a
crown of glory shall be granted to the faithful servant.
The whole of this psalm suggests nany inquiries of a practical
kind. P'irst of all, are we blessed ? The psalm relates to the
blessedness of a peculiar character, and we are entitled to ask
how far we correspond to its lineaments. We may be blessed
in many ways, and must be blessed in all if we follow the way
that is divine. We know what it is to be blessed in human
relations by associal;ing ourselves with those who are of the right
spirit and purpose. " He that walketh with wise men shall
be wise : but a companion of fools shall be destroyed." This
is the law of blessing and destruction. To walk with God is
to move constantly in an upward and heavenly direction.
Another question which we may put is. Do we distinguish
, between blessedness and transient happiness ? There is a great
/ difficulty in this direction. We are so much the creatures of
circumstances that we may interpret momentary emotions as
indicative of solidity of character. Blessedness is a question
of moral rectitude and not a question of transient emotions.
Being right we shall of necessity be blessed. Instead, therefore,
of looking for the effect, let us steadfastly fix our minds upon
the cause, knowing that it is impossible to have happiness from
the outside, and that all blessedness expresses an inward and
spiritual condition. We may well interrogate ourselves further
in the matter of our own fruitfulness. What is the kind of
fruit which we bring forth ? What are our actions ? How are
our words regarded by those who are walking in darkness
or are inquiring for the solution of great problems ? " Say
Psalm i.] THE TRAES OF GOD. 2j
ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him : for they
shall eat the fruit of their doings." The root being right, the
fruit shall be good. " Godliness is profitable unto all things,
having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to
come." Are we to be compared to the worthless chaff? We
need not shrink from the question as if it could not be answered,
for we well know that the reply is in our own hearts. Pitiable
is the life of the ungodly. They are as stubble before the wind
and as chaflf that the storm carrieth away. Christ, the Saviour
of the world, will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
However much appearances may be on the side of those who
are ungodly, we read concerning them that " the world passeth
away, and the lust thereof ; " it is a momentary satisfaction, ^
which perishes in the using. Whom God calls blessed can '
never be desolate ; whom God calls cursed can never know
true joy. Let us set it down as a fact in life, as a standard
of judgment, that it is impossible for us to alter moral qualities
and moral issues ; we are called upon to accept the moral
constitution of the universe as God has appointed it, to work out
its laws, and either by obedience to enter into its heaven, or by
disobedience to be flung away as sons of perdition.
Psalm ii.
[Note. — Jerusalem appears to be threatened by hostile powers, a con-
federacy that took advantage of the succession of a young and inexperienced
monarch, to throw ofl' the bonds of subjection and tribute. David, Solomon,
Ahaz, and Uzziah have each of them been regarded as the hero and theme
of the poem, but not one name satisfies the conditions of the psalm. Pro-
bably the psalm expresses an ideal view of the future. The psalm is lyric.
It is based on the words of Nathan, and is referred historically to the
time of the coronation of Solomon. The ancient Jewish commentators
unanimously describe the Messianic interpretation of this psalm as a common
one. Modern Jewish commentators interpret the song of David exclusively.
In Acts iv. 25 the psalm is referred to as Messianic ; in Acts xiii. ,^3, verse 7
is reft rred to as accomplished in the resurrection ; and in Heb. i. 5 it is
regarded as intimating Christ's proper divinity. No doubt is entertained
by the closest investigators, that in early days before the Christian era the
psalm was regarded as Messianic. It has been attempted to explain it in
reference to David, Solomon, Zerubbabel, and Maccabees; but the whole
scope of the psalm is too vast for any such limitation. The early Christians
ascribed the psalm to David. Some critics of authority attribute it to
Solomon, some to Hezekiah, some to Isaiah, or his times.]
THE KINGDOM OP CHRIST.
"Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The
kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands
asunder, and cast away their cords from us" (vers. I-3).
WHY do the heathen rage? Because they are the heathen.
The explanation of an action is to be found in character.
The heathen, understanding by that term all lawless and un-
organised communities, or communities uninspired by the spirit
of reverence and justice, are without religious intelligence,
sobriety, self-control; therefore they "rage" — literally, they
bluster, and they foolishly suppose that noise is power. Thus
the explanation of all things of a human kind is to be found in
the quality of human character. No solidity of character means
excitement, restlessness, fury, aimless striking, and irrational
procedure altogether.
Psalm ii.3 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 25
Why do the people imagine a vain thing? Because they are
the people ; that is to say, they are a crowd, a multitude, a mob ;
they do not move from a social centre ; they are the victims and
sport of any passion that may be uppermost at the moment
The idea of social or united responsibility does not enter into
their thinking, and, therefore, does not regulate their action. Mere
numbers do not constitute society : men may be in association
and yet not in fellowship. What is wanted is organisation, legal,
moral, and sympathetic; such organisation alone consututes "the
people " in the Christian and even truly philosophic sense of the
term.
But why do the kings and the rulers take counsel together
against the Lord ? Because they are kings and rulers ; that is
to say, they do not know that all governments are inferior and
subordinate to spiritual and divine dominion ; they resent every
suggestion of the sort; they have all the pettiness but none of
the genius of rulership ; they do not know that rulership ought
to come up out of the spirit of obedience, and, therefore, that he
who cannot obey, cannot rule. Their notion of rulership is that
of "directing " and "casting away"; it is destructive, negative,
ruthless. The very terms they use indicate their conception of
sovereignty. They do not say. Let us examine ; they say. Let
us break ; not, Let us argue, but. Let us cast away 1 And this
spirit comes out of a false notion of divine government; they
designate that government by two expressive terms — namely,
" bands " and "cords"; they think that the Lord's government
is tyranny and slavery ; to them it is not a spiritual dominion of
thought, rectitude, sympathy, culture, discipline; but a dominion
of bands and cords, — that is, of merely physical and tyrannous
strength. Such is the course of thinking adopted by rude and
selfish ignorance, it means tyranny, usurpation, and is utterly
destitute of beneficence and moral grandeur. There are no
greater names in social language than " kings " and " rulers," nor
is there any occasion to change the names; the great thing to be
done is to purge them of all injurious and unholy elements ; the
words " the people " must remain for ever as conveying a
significance peculiarly their own ; but instead of these words
representing mere mobs or masses or uncontrollable multitudes,
26 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm ii.
they must represent organised communities based on the principle
of mutual responsibility and common welfare.
"He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh : the Lord shall have them in
derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his
sore displeasure" (vers. 4, 5).
The heathen and the people, the kings and the rulers, are
answered with contempt, they are laughsd at and derided ; and
if this be not enough to change their spirit and their purpose
they will be spoken to in wrath and vexed in sore displeasure.
It is interesting and instructive to remark how creation first
laughs at and derides men who oppose it, and how in the next
place it avenges the insults which are offered to its laws. When
Canute rebuked the waves the sea laughed at him and the waves
had him in derision ; had he remained upon the position which
he had chosen, laughter and derision would have been exchanged
for vengeance and overthrow. Let a man attempt to put down
the wind, and the only possible answer is derision; let him
attempt to defy the lightn'ng, and he may perish under its stroke.
There is but a short distance between the derisiveness of nature
and its penal judgments. So every attempt to revile the power
of God is contemned, and every insult offered to his holiness is
avenged. A very curious process is indicated by these two
verses. The laughter is expressive of an eternal law ; things are
not so constituted that they can be turned about at the pleasure
of the wicked, nor is the purpose of the universe so fickle that
the wrath of man can affect its fulfilment ; great strength can
afford to deride ; infinite power can best express its own con-
sciousness of almightiness by smiling upon all the hosts which
array themselves against it. But this answer of contemptuous
laughter must not be the only reply, for contempt can seldom
have any moral issue of a really substantial and blessed kind ;
there must come a time when law must avenge itself upon those
who would insult its majesty or mock its power. First, laughter
as a proof of the utter impossibility of injuriously affecting the
standards and purposes of God ; after laughter must come the
judgment, which shows how dangerous it is to trifle with fire, and
how awful a thing it is to defy the wrath of righteousness. It
is for every man to consider under what particular phase of the
divine regard he is now living. For a period he may be amused,
Psalm ii.] THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 27
as it were, at certain phases of the opposition of nature or the
awkwardness of life ; but let him not suppose that he sees the
whole of the case: such opposition and awkwardness may
suddenly be displaced by judgment and vengeance and destiny
irrevocable.
A very beautiful expression is found in the sixth verse : —
"Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion." There is
but one king, and he is throned upon a hill that is beyond all
other characteristics holy. Mark how the moral is associated
with the royal in this picture of divine sovereignty. A throne
that is set upon any other hill than a hill that is holy must fall
because of want of solid and enduring foundation. Assured that
the hill is holy, we may comfort ourselves with the further
assurance that every sovereignty founded upon it is also holy.
The kings of the earth had forgotten the King of Zion, and the
rulers made by rude strength of their own had forgotten that all
true rulership is but a phase of heaven's eternal sway. What
is the reason why masters should rule their households well ?
because they have to remember that they themselves have a
master. So kings are to reign under the King, and power is to
be established upon holiness. Any king who supposes himselt
to be final must of necessity become a tyrant, because final
authority is inconsistent with limited wisdom and restricted
power. Finality can only belong to completeness. Kings should
never cease to pray. This applies not only to kingships of a
political or imperial kind, but to sovereignties of a spiritual,
moral, and social degree. There is a temptation to believe that
kingship is equivalent to deity ; in other words, that the man who
is upon the throne has no need to live upon any higher life than
his own. This is a fatal error into whatever lines of thinking it
may enter. The more gifted the mind, the more incessant should
be its religious desires, that it may be kept in the right course,
upheld amid all the temptations incident to ascendency, and
chastened daily by still deeper insight into the frailty of human
nature and the uncertainty of all earthly or finite tenures. In
this sense the fgither has, so to say, more need to pray than has
the child. In a sense he is both father and child, having to
think for both, and plan the life of both, and concern himself with
28 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm ii.
the most solemn aspects of the destiny of both. The pastor's
prayer should be coloured by the necessity and the desire of the
thousand hearts that look to him for the utterance of common
necessities.
" I will declare the decree : the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son ;
this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron ; thou shalt dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel " (vers. 7~9)'
There is nothing in the economy of life and civilisation that is
haphazard. Before all things and round about them as a glory
and defence is the Lord's " decree." Under all disorder is law.
That law is first beneficent and then retributive ; it is beneficent
because it contemplates the recovery and sanctification of the
heathen and the uttermost parts of the earth ; it is retributive
because if this offer of enclosure and honour is rejected, those
who despise it shall be broken with a rod of iron and dashed to
pieces like a potter's vessel. In a study of the world's constitu-
tion and movement, look first of all at the Lord's decree, in other
words, at the Lord's idea and purpose. Settle it that the decree
is good, merciful, redemptive, and then judge everything in the
light of that fact. If we were judging of a national constitution,
we should not pronounce it bad because of its prisons ; we
should, on the contrary, pronounce it good for that very reason.
We should know that there was a strong authority in the land,
and that the authority was good because it imprisoned and
rebuked the workers of evil. So the rod of iron attests the
holiness of God ; and hell itself shows that virtue is honoured of
heaven. Whatever may be the intermediate interpretation of
these words, it is the joy of the Christian to find their full
fruition in the advent and priesthood of Jesus Christ. Sometimes
long periods are required for the full interpretation of ancient
terms. We read these terms with wonder; sometimes we invent
momentarily satisfactory interpretations of them; we may even
go so far as to build orthodoxies upon certain meanings which
we attribute to them ; but as the ages come and go and new
phases of human nature and divine purpose are disclosed we
begin to see fuller, if not final meanings, and according to our
enlarging light should be the expansiveness of our judgment and
Psalm ii.] THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 29
charity. No birth in human history known to us so completely
covers these terms with glory and beneficence as does the birth
of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Not even in the New Testament
have these words been excelled for dignity and spiritual richness.
Here is law as if eternity itself had spoken : here is divine con-
sultation resembling the conference between the persons of the
Godhead reported in the earliest books of Scripture : here is the
creation of a new term — " Son," and a new relation as between
God and the new humanity: no longer do we read of Creator and
creature, but of Father and Son : here is sublime prophecy, — the
heathen are turned into Christ's inheritance, and the uttermost
parts of the earth are filled with the summer of his love. The
awful words of the ninth verse do not refer to the people as such,
but to the people in their heathen capacity ; it is heathenism that
is to be broken with a rod of iron ; it is heathenism that is to
be dashed in pieces like a potter's vessel. Even if the words be
taken to apply to the people in the ordinary sense of the term,
they can only be so applied when the people set themselves
stubbornly against the will of the Almighty. The clear and
beneficent teaching of the passage is that there can be but one
God, one sovereign power, one eternal righteousness, and that
whatsoever sets itself against this one rulership must inevitably
be broken and dashed in pieces.
" Be wise now therefore, O ye kings : be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest
he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a
httle. Bleased are all they that put their trust in him" (vers. 10-12).
The threatening of Jehovah is neither an empty taunt nor a
lawless passion. When he speaks of breaking the wicked with
a rod of iron and dashing them in pieces like a potter's vessel,
he is not to be compared with the kings and rulers who said
" Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords
from us." God's threatening has amoral purpose in view, which
is to turn the kings to wisdom and the judges to instruction : his
threatening is indeed an aspect of his gospel. When the parent
threatens the child it is not for the child's injury but for the
child's welfare. We do wrong in stopping at the threatening and
overlooking the purpose. Our business is rather to look stead-
fastly at the purpose of God and to believe that all the methods
30 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm ii.
which he adopts for its accomplishment are wise and good and
best. Having shown the wicked how terrible he can be — how
easy it would be for him to break them and dash them in pieces
— he calls upon them to serve to him, kiss the Son, and to
enjoy the blessedness of them that put their trust in him. The
Lord is not willing that any should perish. Judgment is his
strange work. Christ will either have men as an inheritance,
or he will have them as vessels which are fit only to be dashed
to pieces. Those who scorn his grace shall perish by his power.
A very vivid illustration of the method of divine providence
is supplied by these verses. Here is, for example, warning ;
warning is succeeded by threatening ; warning and threatening
are both succeeded by an offer of reconciliation and peace and
joy. We do not find in these verses mere denunciation or mere
threatening ; we find denunciation and threatening employed for
the purpose of awakening attention to an offered gospel ; the
consequences of sin are set forth in appalling terms, and the
method of reconciliation is indicated with definiteness that cannot
be mistaken. " Kiss the Son," — wonderful words are these ;
they mean obeisance, confession of error, willingness to serve,
acknowledgment of divine supremacy. This is the kiss of
peace, it is indeed the holy kiss, it has in it all the meaning of
heaven. The words can be understood better by the heart than
by the head. They point to a happy reconciliation, the humble
acceptance of divinely-tendered terms and the rest which comes
of obedience. "When his wrath is kindled but a little," — this is
the purpose of the divine wrath, to show what it can do, and yet
to awaken in the sinner a feeling that even this wrath may be
escaped by a method of God's own invention. Whatever we see
of divine wrath now may be described as " but a little." It is a
fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Do not let
us delude ourselves with the sophism that we understand ajl
that is meant by the punishment of sin. Verily it is an ever-
lasting punishment 1 Its duration is the smallest of all the
elements that enter into it. It is not at all an arithmetical
quantity. The fearfulness of falling into the divine hands must
be left amongst the terms which cannot be explained by human
speech, and must be so understood as to subdue the heart and
[Jead the rebellious will to the acceptance of divine terms.
Psalm ii.] THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. 31
Observe that in this psaim the kings and the rulers, the heathen
and the people, are all addressed in a common language. There
is not one way for kings and rulers and another way for the
common people. Sin is one in all cases, essentially and un-
changeably. Let us notice specially the folly of those who
ought to know better — kings and rulers and judges setting them-
selves in array against heaven. If the leaders go wrong, who
can expect the followers to do that which is right ? We look to
certain men to lead the sentiment of their time. He works under
infinite disadvantage who is not encouraged in his small endea-
vours by the example and the stimulus of men of higher age and
larger attainment than his own. When the prophets prophesy
falsely, what wonder if the whole Church be given over to
delusion.
Let us, in the next place, measure and determine everything
by the divine "decree." What God hath purposed must
stand. Has he ever spoken well of wickedness? Has he
ever commended the wicked man ? From end to end of the
Bible the testimony of the divine righteousness is one ; that
righteousness is set against all the counsels of the wicked, and
that righteousness is the very security of heaven. We find in
the New Testament a confirmation of this psalm, as, for example
(Acts xiii. 33) : " It is also written in the second psalm, Thou
art my Son, this day have I begotten thee." Thus the passage
is appropriated for Christian uses. Whilst we avoid all merely
fantastic spiritualising, we are not at liberty to decline interpreta-
tions which include the whole of the facts and cover the entire
circle of their noblest significations. The last point of application
may well be that we have received the threatening of the Lord,
or the warning, and that by so much our responsibility is
increased. Although we may not have received the gospel, we
cannot deny that we have been warned of the evil of sin and of
its necessary penalties. That is a point never to be overlooked
in considering our exact relation to God. He can quote his own
words against us, in that he has followed us with many a warn-
ing, importuned us with many an entreaty, alarmed us by many
a judgment ; and has followed up all this negative course by an
offer of reconciliation to himself through the priesthood of his Sop
32 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm ii.
Christian eyes can see in this second psalm much of the
character and mission of the Son of God. It would seem as
if the author saw the day breaking over the hills of heathen
darkness. He does not scruple to depict the exact condition
of affairs, and yet in all the gloom of night he begins to have
hope of the approaching dawn. Great as has been the opposi-
tion against the divine righteousness, the writer begins to see
that there is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against
the Lord. Whilst all the kings and rulers of the earth are em-
battled against heaven, the Psalmist beheld the incoming of One
of whom he could say, " Of the increase of his government and
peace there shall be no end." He sees the enemies of the Lord
being made into the footstool of Christ. In the darkest day the
saints of God have had hope. The sight of heathenism should
not depress the soul into moods of despair ; it should turn expec-
tation and attention in the direction of heaven itself, because out
of its height shall come the King who shall rule all kings and the
Saviour who shall taste death for every man. " All the ends of
the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord : and all the
kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee." Wonderful
things has God shown unto his watching children in the night-
time. The darkness has not excluded the beauty of the future.
" I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man
came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days,
and they brought him near before him. And there was given
him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations,
and languages, should serve him : his dominion is an everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that
which shall not be destroyed." None could have seen the darkness
and terrible moral condition of the ancient world as the saints of
old themselves did. To us it is but history, whilst to them it
was the immediate fact of the day : yet from their lips we have
the most eloquent prophecies of times that were to come. There
is no sublimity higher than the prophecies of the psalmists and
the seers of ancient times. " Arise, O God, judge the earth : for
thou shalt inherit all nations." " He shall have dominion also
from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth."
"And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a
kingdom, which shall never be destroyed : and the kingdom shall
Psalm ii.] THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST, 33
not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and con-
sume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever." Often-
times the joy of the ancient prophets rose into music of the purest
quality, — " And the Gentiles shall come to thy hght, and kings to
the brightness of thy rising." The Old Testament has in it the
joy of prophecy ; the New Testament has in it the higher joy of
realisation. What we have specially to note is that the decree
is one, the law is continuous, the divine throne is unchanging and
unchangeable in its occupancy, and that it is vain for human
invention to attempt any other way of reconciliation with the
Father, or to substitute any scheme that shall end in harmony
with God except that which is laid down in the Sacred Book
itself. " Kiss the Son." Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and
thou shalt be saved. " There is none other name under heaven
given among men, whereby we must be saved." Methods and
policies and relations — all that constitutes the surface of human
society must continually change, but at the heart of things is the
immutable law that only by Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
can the world be redeemed and saved.
NOTE.
The kissing of princes was a token of homage (Psalm ii. 12; I Sam. x. i).
Xenophon says that it was a national custom witli the Persians to kiss
whomsoever they honoured. Kissing the feet of princes was a tolien of
subjection and obedience; which was sometimes carried so far that the print
of the foot received the kiss, so as to give the impression that the very dust
had become sacred by the royal tread, or that the subject was not worthy to
salute even the prince's foot, but was content to kiss the earth itself near
or on which he trod (Isa. xlix. 23; Micah vii. 17; Psalm Ixxii. 9). The
Rabbins did not permit more than three kinds of kisses, the kiss of reverence,
of reception, and of dismissal.
The peculiar tendency of the Christian religion to encourage honour
towards all men, as men ; to foster and develop the softer aflcctions ; and,
in the trying condition of the early church, to make its members intimately
known one to another, and unite them in the closest bonds — led to the
observance of kissing as an accompaniment of that social worship which
took its origin in the very cradle of our religion. Hence the exhortation —
'Salute each other with a holy kiss" (Rom. xvi. 16; see also I Cor. xvi. 20;
2 Cor. xiii. 12; I Thess. v. 26; in l Peter v. 14, it is termed "a kiss of
charity"). The observance was continued in later days, and has not yet
wholly disappeared, though the peculiar circumstances have vanished which
gave propriety and emphasis to such an expression of brotherly love and
Christian friendship. — Kittq's Cyclopadia of Biblical Likraiitre,
VOL. XII. 3
Psalm iii.
[Note. — ^This is the first psalm which is ascribed in the title to David.
It is supposed to have been written by him in an hour of peril and persecu-
tion after the ark had been long established in Jerusalem. The hymn-book
of Israel properly begins with this psalm. It is the only psalm in the book
which is expressly assigned to the period of David's flight from Absalom.
The structure of the psalm is regular — four divisions, with two verses of
equal length (with one exception, verse 7). The fifth verse would seem to
suggest that the psalm was composed for a morning song, as Psalm iv. is an
evening song. In both the psalms the number of verses is the same.
Probably this psalm was used in the liturgical service of the temple. The
character of David is almost fully delineated in this composition.]
THE DIVINE PROTECTOR.
" Lord, how are they increased that trouble me I many are they that rise
up against me " (ver, l).
WHEN a man's enemies increase in number the man should
bethink himself, for surely they will not increase with-
out reason. This is a matter which cannot be decided without
careful consideration. It is no argument against a man that his
enemies are millions strong, nor is it any argument in favour of
the man that his friends are at least equal in number. At the
same time it may be spiritually educative and useful to consider
why there are so many enemies. Enmity may be founded upon
jealousy, or envy, or opposition of conviction ; or upon assurance
that the individual against whom the enmity is directed is pursu-
ing a mischievous course. It is for the man himself to retire
within the sanctuary of his own conscience to discover his moral
purpose in everything, and according as his integrity can be
proved to stand fast even in solitude or desolation. But there is
a self-analysis that is irreligious. It is conducted upon wrong
principles, and the conductor of it is resolved upon self-vindi-
cation rather than upon an absolute discovery of truth, be it on
which side it may. It should be remembered, too, that there are
Psalm iii.] THE DIVINE PROTECTOR. 35
some questions which cannot be decided in solitude ; the help of
social influences is necessary to modify the judgment and to
chasten the feeling of the inquirer. A second thought arising in
this connection is that the very fact of the enemies being all but
countless in number may be a tribute to the man's greatness.
Armies are not sent out to cut down mushrooms or bulrushes.
The very magnitude of the host encamped against a man may
say without words how great the man is and mighty, and how
worthy of being attacked. To leave some men alone is to with-
hold from them every moral and intellectual tribute. We say
we treat certain persons with contempt, because they are utterly
unworthy of serious criticism or opposition. Such persons are
said to be treated with silent disdain. On the other hand, in
proportion as a man is powerful and resolute, and is of social
consequence, it may be necessary to combine against him in
overwhelming numbers, the numbers themselves being a tribute
to the very greatness which they desire to modify or overthrow.
Then a third thought arises which cannot be dispensed with by
any man who is anxious to understand his exact position : it is
possible for a man to create a host of imaginary enemies, and so
to make himself miserable without a shadow of reason. Infinite
mischief arises from this perversion of mind. Honest men are
put in false relations and are subjected to unnecessary tests and
standards. Words, which are perfectly simple both in their
colour and in their intention, are discoloured and twisted from
their purpose, so that the frankest spirit is brought under unjust
and ungenerous criticism. The man who practises this habit
is suffering from a most disastrous mental and moral disease.
Whatever he touches he withers. His own house becomes a
grim sepulchre. Childhood, beauty, innocence are all polluted or
perverted by his touch or use. Speaking generally, it is as a
whole a wise thing to look for advantages and encouragements
rather than to look at difficulties and hindrances in the education
of the spiritual life. Certainly in all social relations and customs
it is better to mistake an enemy for a friend than to mistake
a friend for- an enemy. Everything is gained by the large and
generous view, and everything is lost by contracted and sus-
picious criticism. Then there comes the great difficulty of undue
self-importance. Everything turns upon relations to the mere
36 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm iii.
individual, and thus the individual is exaggerated and ultimately
settles into an unexpressed custom of self-consideration and
even self-idolatry. It should always be remembered that when
a great number of people are against a man the man himself is
also against a great number of people. Both sides of the situation
ought to be taken into due account if honest judgment is to be
the result of examination. Speaking to God about our troublers
and opponents, we seem to forget that the Lord himself is not
of their number, and therefore in the very act of magnifying the
opposition we forget the one thing that should throw that opposi-
tion into contempt and uselessness — namely, the omnipotence
of God, which is eternally pledged on the side of the good and
honest heart. If David had spoken more about the Lord and
less about his enemies, his spiritual tranquillity would have
remained undisturbed. But even David is drawn aside from the
higher contemplations to consider the number of his enemies.
Even the sublimest worshipper is not safe when he takes his
eye away for one moment from the king in whom should be
all his trust.
"Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in
God " (ver. 2).
In making statements of this kind a man should be exceedingly
critical lest he unconsciously seek to tempt God. This may, in
reality, be less a complaint than a challenge. A very subtle
temptation thus assails the heart and clothes itself with religious
forms and prostrates itself in pious attitudes. We know how
this temptation works socially. We indirectly challenge our
friends by reminding them of the position assumed towards us
by our enemies. We quote or invent words supposed to have
been uttered by the enemy, and these we pour into the ear of our
friends with an unavowed but deeply-felt desire to stimulate them
by the angry tones of those who are supposed to be in opposition
to us. " Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." At the same
time it is perfectly possible for a man to be really mocked by the
enemy and for these very words to be used against the devout
soul. They ^Yere substantially used against Jesus Christ himself.
The enemy said, " He trusted in God ; let him deliver him
now, if he will have him : for he said, I am the Son of God."
Psalm iii.] THE DIVINE PROTECTOR. zi
It should be remembered also that there is an external view
of providence which would seem to countenance the doctrine
that affliction, desolation, or trial, is a manifest proof of divine
displeasure. When a man is hunted and persecuted, when
everything to which he puts his hand seems to fail, when his
days are nights and his nights are unblessed by a single star,
when his fields are turned into deserts and his gardens into
stony places without blossom or fruit, there is a strofig tempta-
tion addressed to the observer to regard persons suffering from
such circumstances as disapproved or forsaken of God. This
heathenish view of God is contradicted by the history of the
Church and the personal consciousness of good men. We should
remind ourselves of the noble saints who under such circum-
stances through their prayers and their faith were actually
richer in their poverty than in their external wealth, and stronger
in their supposed weakness than in their fancied security.
" When I am weak, then am I strong."
" But thou, O Lord, art a shield for me ; my glory, and the lifter up of
mine head. I cried unto the Lord with my voice, and he heard me
out of his holy hill. I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord
sustained me" (vers. 3-5).
A vigorous realisation of the spiritual above the materiah
David seems now to be his true self He has left the little and
beclouded view and risen to levels whence he can survey the
larger providence and purpose of heaven. Strange as it may
appear, it is when material forces press against us with mightiest
urgency that we see most of the nearness and sufficiency of the
spiritual world. It is when we are driven to the very brink and
our foothold seems to be insecure that we are enabled to commit
ourselves to the security and love of the infinite. The twelve
legions of angels seemed to be nearest Christ when his enemies
were triumphing over him. That is a consideration which
should sustain the soul in every night of assault and danger.
Material help is then of no use, it is out of place because out of
harmony with the soul's deepest and richest experiences. There
is a poverty which money cannot relieve. There is a danger to
which an offered sword is little better than an affront. There
are extremities in life which God only can handle ; but it is
the experience of the Church that in such extremities God has
38 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm iii.
magnified his grace towards his suffering ones and delivered
them with great strength from the crises which afQicted the
soul.
These verses show how much a man may have in reality when
he seems to have absolutely nothing in appearance. David has
described his estate as one of loneliness, amounting almost to
utter desolation, so far as social relationships are concerned. He
seems to be alone in the very midst of threatening and desperate
enemies. His soul is mocked and his prayers are blown aside
by the furious opposition of his pursuers,. What then has
David even in the midst of all this loss and peril and fear ? He
himself seems to give an inventory of his riches. First of all, he
has a sense of security. This is evident from the words, " Thou
art a shield for me." The image of divine protection under the
tj'pe of a shield is of frequent occurrence in Holy Scripture. It
occurs in the very first book of the Bible : — " Fear not, Abram : I
am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward." In the Psalms
the same image occurs again and again : — " The Lord God is a
sun and shield," — these are words which have comforted the
Church in the hour of its saddest distresses. In the next place,
David had a sense of prayer, — he described God as the lifter up
of his head : the meaning is that though sore driven, he could
still turn his eyes towards heaven, expectant of spiritual deliver-
ance and benediction, and that even when his enemies were most
heavily pressing upon him he was lifted up higher than any of
them — a target to be shot at ; but he knew that no arrow of the
enemy could strike the head that was divinely sustained. Then
David points out the fact of his own enjoyment of the quietness
and refreshment of sleep, — " I laid me down and slept." An
eye so critical as this could never be without an object of divine
care upon which to rest. We are too prone to think of God only
as at the head of battles and as leading great hosts in orderly
procession : we forget that he giveth his beloved sleep, that he
dries the tears of sorrow, and that he does about us the work of
a servant, ministering to our life in patience and tenderness and
all-bountifulness of love. The warrior who talks about a shield
and who rejoices in the lifting up of his head recognises in the
gift of sleep the benediction of God. " I will both lay me down
Psalm iii.] THE DIVINE PROTECTOR. 39
in peace, and sleep : for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in
safety." " When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid : yea,
thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet," God will
never allow himself to be excluded from what may be termed the
more quiet and domestic spheres of life. He as certainly closes
the eyelids of his loved ones in sleep as he makes the outgoings
of the morning and of the evening to rejoice.
" I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, * that have set them-
selves against me round about " (ver. 6).
Now a new tone occurs in the speech of David. The remark-
able variation of experience depicted in this psalm is full of
instruction and is set above all doubtful criticism by the fact that
it is confirmed by our own knowledge of human life. We our-
selves have passed through all this urgent and many-coloured
transition. The sixth verse contains really no great boasting
when the circumstances are fully considered. Why should a
man set up in a castle of granite dare the tiny sparrows to invade
his security ? He that is for us is more than all that can be
against us. " Though an host should encamp against me, my
heart shall not fear : though war should rise against me, in this
will I be confident." " If God be for us, who can be against
us ? " Yet on the side of our personal weakness this is surely no
mean boast. When our children are against us, as Absalom was
in this case, when we are poor, desolate, hunted, and persecuted
in every way, it is something to have such a view of God as shall
become to us a shield, a buckler, a strong tower, and a pavilion ;
then we do not compliment God, we felicitate ourselves upon the
* ninotthe myriads fear. — "The myriads" was no hyperbolical expres-
sion. There were actually myriads rising against him; and "myriads of
the people," of his own people, all over the country; so that he could not
tell who would befriend and who would betray him. Had " the people "
Stood by him, it would have been of less consequence though the army had
gone over to Absalom ; but he was in the midst of a population that could
not be depended on — that, in the excitement of the moment, scarcely knew
their own mind. Yet was he fearless of the increasing myriads that declared
against him. And not because they were still at a distance ; for they were
"round about," already hovering close at hand, if not in active pursuit.
Even Ahithophel, with his twelve thousand, would not now find it easy to
"make him afraid " (2 Sam. xvii. 2). His Protector was nearer than they,
and to him he cries. — Dalman Hapstone, M.A,
40 ' THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm iii.
unmerited possession and enjoyment of his favour. It should
always be remembered that by fear we dishonour God. We are
not only without faith, which is to our soul an inexpressible loss
of dignity and strength, but we actually dishonour the Most High
by a spirit of fear, suspicion, and cowardice, leading the mocker
to taunt us and to ask us bitterly as to our God and our hope.
" Arise, O Lord ; save me, O my God : for thou hast smitten all mine
enemies upon the cheek bone ; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly "
(ver. 7).
Unless this prayer be the expression of the soul in its highest
and heavenliest moods, it is the most insidious impiety. A man
is not entitled to exaggerate his own cause, when he is putting
the case to God, as between himself and his enemies. It is very
natural for a man to think that whoever is against him must be a
fool, a knave, and a wicked person altogether. We never see all
the aspects of a case. In the wars of nations each side commends
itself to God, assured that it is right and that heaven will bring
its banners to victory. For the chastening of the soul it is always
necessary to keep in view the fact that no man can see beyond
the circle of which he himself is the centre; he only knows one
set of circumstances or one aspect of facts, or he omits from his
outlook objects and considerations which are absolutely necessary
to the completeness of the case. Little prayers will be the result
of little conceptions. The prayer, even in its utmost fervour,
that is bounded by the selfhood of the suppliant is a prayer to
which no great answer can be returned. Opponents are not
without good qualities. The enemy himself has a conscience, a
sense of responsibility, and it may be some apprehension of the
value and blessedness of prayer. Better, therefore, pray that
righteousness may succeed and that true justice may be done than
that any particular individual should be honoured at the expense
of others. Our prayer should not be "Arise, O Lord, and save
m.e," but "Arise, O Lord, and vindicate equity, and bring forth
righteousness and judgment as the morning and as the noonday."
But who can pray that great prayer when his soul is encom-
passed on every side, and all the hosts of evil seem to be set in
deadly array against him ? Still, this pharisaism or self-satis-
faction must be utterly cleansed out of the heart before the heart
Psalm iii.] THE DIVINE PROTECTOR. 41
can offer great and generous prayer. How apt we are to suppose
that persons who are our enemies are also enemies of God !
Thus we dishonour our Father in heaven. Thus, indeed, we
perpetrate a kind of idolatry which is hardly at all disguised.
When we pray the great impersonal prayer, " Not my will, but
thine, be done," we shall have entered into the mystery of
Christ's fellowship with the Father. Until we realise that pro-
found communion with the infinite, our prayers must of necessity
be narrowed and tainted by selfishness.
"Salvation belongeth unto the Lord: thy blessing is upon thy people"
(ver. 8).
Here the Psalmist happily escapes from the narrow circle of
his own affairs and takes wing for the open firmament of heaven.
The distinction as to divine favour is not so clear between one
man and another as the Psalmist seemed to imagine, for the rain
Cometh down upon the just and upon the unjust, and God is kind
to the unthankful and the evil. But the doctrine of this verse is
universally and for ever true. All complete deliverance or
salvation is from the Lord ; and the divine blessing rests upon
God's people in a sense which they alone can spiritually discern
and appreciate. Whilst a man is confused by the details of his
own cause he is at the mercy of every change of circumstances ;
but when he takes his stand upon God's sovereignty and righteous-
ness he is resting upon a rock which cannot be shaken. Through-
out the Bible God is careful to reserve his own sovereignty.
" I, even I, am the Lord ; and beside me there is no Saviour,"
" There is no God else beside me ; a just God and a Saviour ;
there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all
the ends of the earth : for I am God, and there is none else."
However great may be our spiritual liberties we are still bound
to the eternal centre. However multitudinous and energetic
may be secondary causes, and however helpful they may be, we
must take the mind steadily and thoroughly back to the throne of
God, and remember that there is but one majesty in the universe
and one everlasting righteousness.
We may well ask why our circumstances are more trying than
our neighbours'. The Psalmist represents the bitterest of all
4'2 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm iii.
human experience and the loneliest of all forsakenness. It was
the man's own son who had turned against him ; his very house
had torn up its own foundations, and all security and joy had
vanished from the family circle. Let this extremity of pain
represent the whole tragedy of human trial, and then we may
find companionship and help in the society of the distressed
king. Then will arise the inquiry whether the defence which
saved David is unequal to our protection. David found his
comfort in God. So long as he looked at his enemies he was
bowed down with dismay. Whilst he fixed his vision upon
external circumstances he saw nothing that could give him one
moment's gladness. But when he turned towards the holy hill
of Zion and cried unto the Lord, he fell asleep like a little child,
and awoke with new strength because of the sustaining hand
of God. After that divinely given sleep David accounted ten
thousand men as nothing, and regarded all their fortresses as but
walls of straw. So between our present despondency and our
future consciousness of power there may intervene but one night
of religious sleep. Do not judge all life by the weakness of this
eventide : true, we are faint, yea, we are utterly exhausted, and
it seems as if the very least of our enemies could drive us into
uttermost distress : what we have to do is to cry unto the Lord
with our voice, and in answer to that prayer there will come not
deliverance but sleep that is rest, a season of recruital and
reinvigoration, and in the morning, awakened by the very hand
who gave us sleep, we shall be able to account ten thousand as
less than one man, and all the host of the enemy as but so many
clouds which the wind driveth away. Is any man afflicted ?
Let him pray. Are we about to surrender our religious con-
fidence ? Let us hear the voice of ancient history — " I sought
the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears."
Psalm iv.
[Note, — This is the Evening Psalm, and probably it was composed at the
same period as the preceding psalm. It is supposed that some of the
expressions point to the period of the persecution of David by Saul ; on the
other hand, it is asserted that they are quite compatible with that of David's
flight from Absalom. There are no imprecations upon his foes, a circum-
stance which is considered to point to Absalom rather than to Saul. This
was one of the psalms repeated by Augustine at his conversion. The psalm
is addressed "To the chief Musician ; " in the margin the word is "overseer."
Probably the inscription is to one who has obtained the mastery, or one who
holds a superior post. "We read of this officer in 2 Chron. ii. l8, xxxiv. 12.
In I Chron. xv. 19 it is stated that the musical directors — Asaph, Heman,
and Ethan — had cymbals and took part in the performance, and hence the
word "the chief Musician" would answer to "a leader of the band." It is
considered that the word precentor is perhaps on the whole the best equiva-
lent. The word Negiiioth is a musical term, occurring in the titles of six
psalms; it is derived from a root which means to touch the strings, and may
point to the explanation " upon stringed instruments or with harp accom-
paniment."]
1. Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness : thou hast enlarged
me when I was in distress ; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer.
2. O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how
long will ye love vanity, &nd seek after leasing ? Selah. *
3. But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself:
the Lord will hear when I call unto him.
4. Stand in awe, and sin not : commune with your own heart upon your
bed, and be still. Selah.
5. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.
6. There be many that say. Who will shew us any good ? Lord, lift thou
up the light of thy countenance upon us.
7. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their
corn and their wine increased.
8. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep : for thou, Lord, only
makest me dwell in safety.
THE QUEST FOR HAPPINESS.
HIS is a fair-weather psalm. David has been in distress,
and now the clouds have been blown away and the blue
sky has returned ; so he does what many seldom think of doing :
• See note, post, p. 78.
T
44 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm iv.
he thanks God for deliverance and enlargement, and takes no
credit to himself. In his high spiritual delight he rebukes those
who love vanity, and those who go after lies or leasing. This is
the inevitable operation of piety : it must rebuke evil ; it cannot
be silent in the presence of wrong. People who had seen his
distress had questioned his religion, and in so doing had sought
to turn his glory into shame, and had exclaimed that vanity was
better than prayer, and that lying was better than sacrifice.
They pointed to facts in proof of their irreligious doctrine ; they
said, " Look at David ; he prays, and faints ; he calls out for God,
and God lets him die amongst the stones of the wilderness ; let
us then pursue vanity, and let us take refuge in lies."
Now David's time has come, and the facts are all on his side.
He falls back upon experience; he becomes his own argument;
gnd his answer is so full, so wise, so firm, that it may be used
as a defence by all who have proved the goodness and helpful-
ness of God in their distress.
Let us put Dav^^ o answer into modern words : —
(i) You have mockingly said, Look at David in his distress;
now that very captivity has been turned by the Most High,
David replies : Look at me in my enlargement and thankfulness.
My turn has come. You must not look at a man's distress alone,
and build an argument upon his sorrow ; you must take into
view the whole compass of his life. Will you say that the earth
is a failure b ause of one bad harvest ? It is important rigidly
to apply this inquiry because of the tendency of the human mind
to think more of trials than of mercies, and to magnify the night
above the day. David would thus seem to take a philosophic
view of human life, in that he will not have it judged by any
series of details but will insist upon penetrating to the core and
meaning of the whole. Refraining from such penetration, what
can we expect from any survey of life but misapprehension ?
There is a middle line in life which alone affords a true basis of
comprehensive judgment regarding the meaning of God in the
mystery of our existence. No doubt there are days even in the
Christian life which by their very darkness exclude God and cast
Psalm iv.] THE qUEST FOR HAPPINESS. 45
a doubt not only upon his providence but upon his existence.
There are other days so full of bright sunshine and high joy that
the soul might be tempted to imagine that the period of discipline
had closed and the time of self-restraint was at an end. Neither
of these times must be taken by itself. We must blend them
in our view, and consider what average they yield. In this
instance David was justified in calling attention to his enlarge-
ment because his imprisonment had been a theme of rejoicing on
the part of the adversary. As a retort the answer is seasonable
and complete. But we have something more to do than to
fashion quick and just retorts to the enemy; we have to put
things together and to see how they shape themselves into an
argument for the divine government, and an indication of the
meaning of our own life and service upon the earth.
(2) David continues : You have been judging by unusual
circumstances and special visitations of trial, but instead of this
you should rest on great principles, and especially on the
principle "that the Lord hath set apart hi hat is godly for
himself." Wholly so ; he is as much the Loius when in sorrow
as in joy, in the wilderness as in Salem : we must not regard
sorrow as a brand or a stain; it is religious; it is part of
the great school-scheme by which God trains, purifies, and
strengthens men. When God sets apart a man for himself, the
man must recognise the fact that he is not at liberty to change
his place or to curtail the time of discipline. It is enough for
him to know that " the foundation of God standeth sure, having
this seal. The Lord knoweth them that are his." he godly man
is strong in the conviction that God hath from the beginning
chosen him to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and
belief of the truth. Again and again we must recognise the fact
that appearances often seem to suggest that the godly man is
forgotten. It is impossible to deny this if we limit our survey of
the situation within limits too narrow to enclose even the outline
of a plan. It would also seem at certain periods of the year as
if God had forgotten the earth itself: for what blessing can there
be in the thick ice or in the drowning rain ? Yet even wintry
circumstances are preparing for summer bleaalngs. The year is
neither all summer nor all winter : so it is with our human life;
46 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm iv.
it also has its four seasons, and only by the four taken in their
entirety can the life-year be wisely and rightly judged.
(3) David seems to have found an argument upon his circum-
stances to the effect : if you believe this, you will " stand in awe,
and sin not ; " that is, you will pray even in the storm, and you
will bow down in homage when the Lord passeth by in judg-
ment ; you will go into the blighted wheat-field and say, "This is
the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes ; " a desolation
shall teach you the power of the Most High. The word " awe "
may be even taken here as suggestive in some degree of anger :
that is to say, anger may rise against certain details in the
providential plan : they are so aggravating, so disappointing, so
hindering ; but even whilst this anger rises it is to be undefiled
by the presence of sin. David calls men to quiet meditation.
What else could be the meaning of his word ? — "commune with
your own heart upon your bed, and be still" — that is, examine
yourselves ; see how far the explanation of outward disasters is
in your own moral condition; reflect, and do not talk; think, and
be quiet ; if you set up words against the Most High, you will
vex your own soul and grieve the Spirit. Commune — talk to
yourself — reflect, but do not speak loudly, or you will become
vulgar and profane. It was no unusual practice for the Psalmist
to betake himself into silent contemplation of the divine way in
life. " I call to remembrance my song in the night : I commune
with mine own heart : and my spirit made diligent search."
Speech begets speech. Words are provocative of controversy.
Better, therefore, to conduct our meditations in wordless silence ;
our communion being with ourselves and with our God. When
all tumult ceases God's softest tones may be heard, but whilst we
live in the uproar of controversy, who can hear the going of the
Most High ?
(4) David continues : You ask a man what you are to do in
loss, and pain, and sorrow. You take counsel one with another
in days of storm and distress. Let me tell you what you ought
to do : — " Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, * and put your trust
in the Lord" (ver. 5); continue in the way of duty; go to the
* See note, pQst, p. 49.
Psalm iv.] THE QUEST FOR HAPPINESS. 47
sanctuary even when you have to grope for the sacred door in
darkness ; seek the altar, and say concerning God, " Though he
slay me, yet will I trust in him." Your temptation will be to
omit the sacrifices and to divide your trust; resist the devil; hold
fast unto the end, and you shall be lifted high above the tumult
of the crowd. People will say to you, " Who will shew us any
good ? " Let your prayer be unto the Lord. The question is
shallow and impertinent ; it is limited to one set of circum-
stances ; be not moved by it, but let your prayer still and for ever
ascend unto God. Sometimes you will have no answer left but
prayer. Facts will be against you — logic will give you no help —
human counsellors will be dumb — but if amidst all opposition
and difficulty you are still found praying, you will confound and
abash the unbeliever and the mocker. In being driven to a
religious refuge you will feel the need of being yourself more
religious. It will be no mere ceremony in which you engage, but
a complete sacrifice and surrender of the heart. As you approach
the altar where you expect to find comfort you will hear the
divine voice saying — " Bring no more vain oblations. . . . Wash
you, make you clean ; put away the evil of your doings from
before mine eyes ; cease to do evil ; learn to do well." We do
not flee to the altar in any mean and selfish spirit, but as having
some claim upon its protection by reason of our living union with
God. If that living union has been in any degree impaired
reparation must be instantly made. "Pay thy vows unto the
Most High." For the rest, even when persecution continues and
the storm shows no sign of abating, the soul must take refuge in
the doctrine — " Wherefore let them that suffer according to the
will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well
doing, as unto a faithful Creator." David quotes a saying which
is familiar to all ages ; " Who will shew us any good ?" This is
the quest of the human heart for happiness. It is the cry of men
who are conscious that something is missing, and hope strangely
mingles with its despair. It is as the cry of a stranger in a
strange land whom night has suddenly overtaken so that he can
see no hope of rest, yet all the while in his heart there is the
hope that at any moment a glimmer may break through the dark-
ness and give him joy. Whilst men are asking the question, the
Church ought to be giving the sublime answer which is found in
^8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm iv.
the sixth verse : — " Lord, lift thou up the light of thy counte-
nance upon us." Religious deliverance is always wrought by
light. We are not carried away in the darkness; we are the
sons of the morning and children of the mid-day. We cannot
forget the blessing we have already studied in the Book of
Numbers : — " The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and
give thee peace." The Old Testament saints were continually
dweUing with rapture upon this thought of divine illumination.
"Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we
shall be saved." " Make thy face to shine upon thy servant."
When the people were delivered and were put into possession of
the land, the victory was not to be ascribed to their own sword,
nor were they to lift up their arm as if it had gotten them their
reward — " But thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy
countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them." It is in
vain for us to seek to cleanse the firmament of darkness ; that
great miracle lies only within the scope of omnipotence. We can
invent temporary plans, we can enkindle dying lights, we can
make partial suggestions which for a moment may relieve mental
and moral pressure, but the all-filling light is the gift of God
alone : hence the cry of the saints of all ages has been that God
would once more say " Let there be light." The Apostle Paul
recognised this great blessing of light in the words— " God . . .
hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." The Christian
may pray for light, that even the brightest day may be brighter
and the light may be as the day.
(5) In the next place David says something which cannot be
understood by the mere letter; it can be understood only by
those who have passed through the same experience. He says,
" Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that
their corn and their wine increased " (ver. 7). The idea is that
in loss and poverty and apparent desolation there may actually
be more gladness, more real and lasting spiritual delight, than
in times of prosperity. The idea goes further than this and in
another direction. The good man — the man whose trust is in the
living God — has more gladness in his poverty than the worldly,
unbelieving, mocking man has in aii his corn and wine. There
Psalm iv.] THE QUEST FOR HAPPINESS. 49
is. a sufficiency that brings no content, and there is a poverty that
cannot dry the springs of the soul's gladness. " A man's life con-
sisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."
The rejoicing of the spiritual man is in spiritual riches, Jesus
Christ said he had bread to eat that the world knew not of.
When the heart is right towards God it does not feel the coldness
of the wind or the pinch of poverty, being lifted high above all
these lower influences and having conscious possession of all the
blessedness and wealth of heaven. It must not be supposed that
when corn and v^^ine increase that gladness increases in propor-
tion to the store. " Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful ; and
the end of that mirth is heaviness." The only enduring joy is
in righteousness. The eternal heaven is in the eternal truth.
Thus David retires from the controversy to lie down and sleep
though his enemies be many and his foes be men of might. He
finds true safety only in the Lord ; yea, when he appears to have
no home and no rest, he feels that he is encircled by the ever-
lasting arms. There is room in the tower of God for thee, my
soul ! Run away from all controversy, and make thyself quiet
in God ! " The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by him ;
and the Lord shall cover him all the day long, and he shall dwell
between his shoulders."
NOTE.
Offerings of righteousness. — Another direction he gave them was to "sacri-
fice the sacrifices of righteousness, and trust in Jehovah." Absalom at
Hebron had been sacrificing too (2 Sam. xv. 12) ; but his sacrifices were of
quite another kind. He professed to be paying a vow which he had never
vowed; to be serving God, while he was prepaiing to push God's anointed
from the throne. At the same time he was putting his trust in Ahithophel,
whom he had sent for (2 Sam. xv. 12), and not in the blessing of God, whose
favour he was professedly seeking by these sacrifices. The direction
resolves itself into three parts : (a) to come before God with sacrifices free
from all taint of knavery and wickedness ; (6) to rest all their hopes of
success on his interposition; (c) to expect with confidence his aid. — Dalman
Hapstone, M.A,
vol.. xn.
Psalm V.
[Note. — The inscription is supposed to be suspicious. The psalm is a sign -
of the troublous times of the later monarchy. At the time of the composition
of this psalm the adherents of Jehovah's religion were intensely disliked
and universally calumniated. The literal rendering of the title is, "To the
leader on the flutes." It might also be read, " To the precentor, with flute
accompaniments." The word Nehiloth, means bored instrmnents. Some
critics have derived the word from the Chaldee, and made it mean "a swarm
of bees," referring to the multitudes reciting the psalm. The use of flutes
in the religious services of the Hebrews is proved by I Sam. x. 5 ; I Kings
i. 40; Isa. XXX. 29.]
1. Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation.
2. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God : for unto
thee will I pray.
3. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning,* O Lord ; in the morning will
I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
4. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness : neither shall
evil dwell with thee.
5. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight : thou hatest all workers of
iniquity.
6. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing : the Lord will abhor the
bloody and deceitful man.
7. But as for me, I will come into thy house in the multitude of thy
mercy : and in thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple.
8. Lead me, O Lord, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies ; make
thy way straight before my face.
9. For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very
wickedness ; their throat is an open sepulchre ; they flatter with their
tongue.
10. Destroy thou them, O God ; let them fall by their own counsels ; cast
them out in the multitude of their transgressions; for they have rebelled
against thee.
11. But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever
shout for joy, because thou defendest them : let them also that love thy
name be joyful in thee.
12. For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou
compass him as with a shield.
* See note, post, p. 56.
Psalm v.] PERSONAL PRAYER AND PRAISE. 51
PERSONAL PRAYER AND PRAISE.
THIS psalm is a direct address to the Almighty. We are
not aware that any special instructions as to exact form
were ever given to man in view of his approaching God in
personal prayer. Reverence was enjoined, but no set form of
words was given ; every heart was left to find words for itself;
whatever best expressed its sorrow and its need, if spoken in
truth, was acceptable to God. Taking this psalm as an example
of personal waiting upon God — separating it from all merely
local circumstances — what may we learn concerning Personal
Worship ?
Mark the Directness of the speech. No priest stands between
the worshipper and his Lord. Every man must state his own
case. We pray for one another, but not instead of one another.
What can be more beautiful than the picture which is thus
represented ? God is put in his right place as the throned father
listening to each of his subjects as the subject may feel impelled
to address him. Every word is charged with tremulous life.
No man can pray for another in the same exquisite and vital
sense as a man can pray for himself: there are always circum-
stances in the case of the petitioner which the petitioner alone
knows, and even though he cannot throw such circumstances
into literal expression he can suggest them all by the very tones
of his voice. We mistake the nature of prayer if we think it
can be limited by words. Even when we use the words of
another in our devotional exercises we throw into their expres-
sion accents which are personal and incommunicable. It is in
such tones and accents that the true quality of the prayer is
found. If prayer consisted only in the utterance of certain
words, then the wicked might pray, and pray with great
elocutionary effect; but the prayer is hardly in the words at
all : it is a subtle fragrance of the soul, an inexpressible some-
thing which we understand most nearly by the name of agony.
This being the nature of prayer, it follows that whatever priestly
mediation there may be in the universe — and that there is such
mediation no student of the Bible can deny — the individual himself
must stand in a direct relation to God, receiving help from the
52 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm v.
.priest, but not in any degree to obliterate his personality or
reduce his spiritual enjoyment.
Then, again, mark the Earnestness of the speech. There is
not one formal sentence in it from "end to end. The man means
what he says. There is no merely literary composition in his
address ; it is the heart's passion for the time being. This
marvellous agony of prayer is a wonderful feature in Old Testa-
ment devotion. The suppliant almost insists upon having his
own way with God. He is so absolutely sure of the righteous-
ness of his cause that he cannot for a moment doubt that God
will instantly reply to him in judgment or in mercy, as the case
may be. The Old Testament saints did not argue a case before
God in fine balancing of words and arguments, by an elaborate
process of giving and taking ; they came boldly with a cause
about whose genuineness they had no doubt, and as it were
insisted upon an immediate reply wholly in their own favour.
All earnestness is in a degree associable with narrow-mindedness :
not narrow-mindedness in the sense of selfishness or meanness,
but in the sense of intensity, the mind being held at such a
strain as not to admit of looking to the right hand or to the left,
or of suspending its agony even for one instant. Earnestness is
but another word for burning. When the soul is on fire it is
really in earnest. Who can think of prayer in any other sense ?
To stand before God at all with sincerity and truthfulness is to
be called up to the very highest point of being. At such a
moment the man realises all the force and quality of his manhood,
all its grandeur, and all the possibilities of its future : by this,
indeed, he knows whether the soul is really in the exercise of
prayer or not ; falling below this exalted consciousness the man
may at once conclude that he has not touched the mystery and
the enjoyment of true communion with God. This ought to be
true of all religious exercises and relationships. To be in the
sanctuary ought to be in a state of complete release from every
memory and anxiety that can distract the attention or trouble
the reverence of the soul. This we know to be almost impossible,
having due regard to all the conditions of life ; but that which
is abstractly impossible may be ideally influential, and may con-
strain the soul to move upwards towards its perfect realisatioQ,
Psalm v.] PERSONAL PRAYER AND PRAISE. 53
-
Having marked the Directness of the speech, and the Earnest-
ness of the prayer, we may next dwell upon the Intelligence
which the speaker displays. For example, what a marvellous
conception he has of the character of God : —
"For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness : neither shall
evil dwell with thee. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight : thou hatest
all workers of iniquity. Thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing : the
Lord will abhor the bloody and deceitful man " (vers. 4-6).
The suppliant was therefore by so much a theologian. Without
a true conception of the nature of Almighty God, how can prayer
be addressed to him ? We might be speaking the wrong
language, or directing our observations to the wrong point, or
invoking judgment in the very act of supplicating mercy. Know-
ledge, therefore, would seem to be the very basis of prayer.
Not knowledge in any scientific sense as involving great ability
in analysis or in metaphysical perception and expression ; but
the knowledge which realises the fatherhood of God and all the
willingness and love of his heart ; a knowledge, too, that realises
the righteousness of God, righteousness being no narrow term,
but a word which embraces the most multifarious elements and
reconciles them in one noble truth. According to the Psalmist's
conception, God is righteous, severe, ineffable in holiness, terrible
in judgment. Now a conception of this kind must exalt the devo-
tional feeling of every man who entertains it. It is not possible
for the soul to go before such a God with frivolous words or with
tones and postures unworthy of the being who is addressed.
The God will always make the prayer. According to the soul's
conception of the throne that is addressed will be the elevation
and reverence and grandeur of the terms that are employed, or
if not of the terms in any literary sense, yet of the tones which
express the soul's divinest moods. Then the Psalmist has also
a clear view of the character and deserts of the wicked ; wicked-
ness is something more to him than an error of judgment, or an
excusable eccentricity, or a mere vapour which shuts out the best
hopes of life. He who entertains but a superficial conception of
wickedness can never in reality pray. He may patronise some
deity, or pay ceremonial attention to some ideality, but pray he
never can. Only the consciously wicked and helpless man can
utter the words, " God, be merciful to me a sinner," with any
54 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm v.
_
spiritual effect. We never know God's mercy until we know
man's wickedness. When we go before God we must carry with
us no excuse either of our own sin or the sins of other people ;
we must express ourselves in utter abhorrence and detestation,
and do this not in words only, but with the very heart and
soul. This is really more than negative worship. The soul
must be in a very positive mood before it can adopt the language
of denunciation and rejection with regard to moral evil. The
terms themselves may from a literary point be simply negative ;
but they never could have been used but for the positive condi-
tion of soul in which the speaker found himself at the time of
their burning utterance.
If this is the kind of prayer which the Lord will hear, then let
us gladly learn, first of all, that one man will be heard. This
idea does not degrade the majesty of heaven, but rather exalts it.
Our vicious imagination is prone to think that the God of the
universe can condescend to listen to nothing but the speech of
the universe itself. The Bible finds it infinitely difficult to rid the
human mind of this unworthy and debasing sophism. We think
we exalt God by coming before him in countless numbers, and
with elaborate and costly display of ceremony and action ;
whereas his very greatness is enlarged to our conception by the
fact that though heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain
him, he will find for himself a sanctuary in the broken and contrite
heart. We must invert our ideas of greatness when we apply
them to the divine being. We express our reverence most
acceptably when we recognise God as numbering the hairs of our
head, caring for the lilies of the field and the fowls of the air,
carrying the lambs in his bosom, and condescending to men of
low estate. Greatness is a question of quality, not of bulk. It
follows that those who are heard and answered in prayer should
be enthusiastic in their joy. This is made evident by the
eleventh verse : —
" But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice : let them ever shout
for joy, because thou defendest them : let them also that love thy name be
joyful in thee."
Prayer finds its true sequel in praise. The very act of prayer,
when conducted according to the conception already laid down,
Psalm v.] PERSOiSTAL PRAYER AND PRAISE. 55
fills the soul with enthusiasm. The soul feels that it has been
engaged in a great exercise and has been ennobled by it, and in
withdrawing from the personal interview with the king there is
a radiance of face which symbolises a still higher brightness and
glory of soul. The only thing that can properly succeed prayer
is praise. Every other tone would be an anti-climax. Even
shouting for joy would seem to be the true sequence of profound
and reverent silence in communion.
Regarding this as an acceptable prayer, we may correct some
mistaken notions of worship. For example, it is often said that
we may not tell God what he already knows. If this were so
there would be no prayer at all, for God knows everything, and
therefore no information can be conveyed to him. We do not
instruct God by the enumeration of facts ; we rather educate our
own minds and train them to fulness of survey and accuracy
of statement. Education is a very subtle process, and is not
all done from the outside. Sometimes the mere utterance of
language shows us how imperfectly we are instructed in the
tongue which we use. The parent loves to hear the child talk,
though the child has nothing to say of the nature of intelligence
or information. The utterance has an educational effect upon
the speaker himself : so it is in the exercise of prayer : as we
begin to enumerate our wants, our necessities grow upon us in
number and in force, until imagination takes fire and almost
invents a new language for the expression of new consciousness.
It is absurd to suppose that we must not tell God the facts of life
simply because God already knows them ; the use which Jesus
Christ made of God's knowledge is of course the right use : it is
that our words should be few — not in the sense of number, but
should be condensed, expressive, charged with the highest mean-
ing, throbbing with immeasurable intensity of feeling. We are
often told that we ought not to make a speech to God in prayer.
By this canon the psalm before us never could have been written,
for it is of the very nature of a noble religious oration : it is,
indeed, a solemn eulogium upon the character and attributes ot
God. The fact is, the finite must often pray as best it can, now
in speech, now in statement, now in a review of life \ the one
thing which must not be lost is earnestness ; so long as that can
56 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm v.
be kept at the fervid point the soul may allow itself to run on
in utterance and praise and supplication and thanksgiving. We
are often told that prayer means asking for something. That is
a vicious mistake. It is possible to pray without asking for
anything in the narrow sense of the term. Prayer includes
fellowship with God, close communion with the Spirit of the
universe, long speech concerning truth, purity, duty, and heaven.
We are more than beggars when we come before the throne of
God : we are children, adopted ones, saints, fellow-heirs with
Christ ; and the soul would be impoverished beyond all concep-
tion if it could not dwell with thankfulness and rapture upon the
abundance of the divine mercy and the delightfulness of filial
communion. Men should never allow themselves to be beaten
back and impoverished by the narrow and unworthy criticism
which limits prayer to mere petitioning or requisition. That the
soul will always have blessings to ask for has been made clear
enough by human experience ; but the highest request it has to
offer is that its own will may be transformed and made coincident
with the will of God. All prayers are brought into one complete
desire in the words of Jesus Christ in Gethsemane : " Never-
theless, not my will, but thine, be done."
SELECTED NOTE.
The efficacy of morning prayer. — The efficacy and especial obligation of
morning prayer is continually dwelt on by Orientals. Thus in the Talmud,
we read, "Every one that eateth and drinketh, and after that says his
prayers, of him the Scripture saith, 'But me thou hast cast behind thy back.'"
And again, "It is forbidden to a man to go about his business before
praying." So too the Koran, " Perform the prayer at the declining of the
sun, at the first darkness of the night, and the prayer of day-break, for the
prayer of day-break is borne witness to." And so Hafiz, the great Persian
lyric poet, addressing the beloved in mystical language, says, " In the
morning hours be on thy guard (lest thou be compelled to hear) if this poor
stranger make his complaint." Such instances might be multiplied almost
without limit. The habit of going to prayer before taking food will explain
the words of St. Peter on the day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 15) ; the disciples
could not have eaten or drunk, for it was still the hour'of morning prayer.
Psalm vi.
[Note.— The end of this psalm is like the beginning. The psalm is like a
voice from a bed of sickness, in which the sufferer is expecting a fatal ter-
mination to his disease. At verse eight the tone changes. No longer does the
sufferer talk of sickness, but of enemies and workers of iniquity and human
foes. May not the sufferings described be sufferings of the soul, rather than
of the body ? In Hebrew literature this would be quite permissible : pictures
of physical pain and disease are often used to express moral evil. The
Church has regarded this as the first of the penitential psalms. Probably
the psalm was composed in the exile period. According to some critics the
psalm harmonises with the transactions preceding the revolt of Absalom.
If the sickness was bodily it was regarded by the Psalmist as part of the
chastisement due to the great crime which brought disgrace and misery upon
his later years. The three divisions of the psalm are verses I-3, 4-7, 8-IO.]
1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot
displeasure.
2. Have mercy upon me, O Lord ; for I am weak : O Lord, heal me ; for
my bones are vexed.
3. My soul is also sore vexed : but thou, O Lord, how long ?
4. Return, O Lord, deliver my soul : oh save me for thy mercies' sake.
5. For in death there is no remembrance of thee : in the grave who
shall give thee thanks ?
6. I am weary with my groaning : all the night make I my bed to swim ;
I water my couch with my tears.
7. Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old because of all
mine enemies.
8. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity ; for the Lord hath heard
the voice of my weeping.
9. The Lord hath heard my suplication ; the Lord will receive my
prayer.
10. Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed : let them return
and be ashamed suddenly.
SORROW AND SUCCOUR.
THE whole of this psalm has about it the air of a sick man :
the Psalmist says that his bones are vexed, that he lies
awake all night, and that his eye is consumed because of grief;
58 THE PEOPLE'S PiBLE. [Psalm vi
he speaks, too, of death and of the grave.* During his sickness
David was unable to discharge the duties of the kingly office; this
gave Absalom considerable advantage in exciting a revolt ; so we
have before the fancy a double picture of distress — David shut up
in his sick chamber, and Absalom doing his utmost to set the
kingdom against his father. Perhaps we have been in the habit
of thinking that the Psalms were written at the window of a
beautiful library, flowers growing luxuriantly on sunny walls,
and the green lawn stretching far away, brightened here and
there by birds of rare plumage ; we have looked upon them, it
may be, as the pious recreations of a morning hour — entries in a
spiritual diary relating only to the sentimental, and never to the
practical side of life. The exact contrary is the case. Some of
these psalms are battles. Many of them came out of heartache
and bitterness and mortal disappointment. They are pages of
autobiography. They are channels worn by the urgent streams
of life. We must never think of them as mere literary recrea-
tions, or as the effusions of a music composer ; they are pangs o*^
the heart, they are letters addressed to God, they are the sancti-
fication of misery and helplessness and despair. It it is worth
while to explore the head of a river, it is of infinitely greater
consequence to find out the spring and source of the streams
which make glad the city of God.
We may get the meaning and help of the psalm by asking,
How did David conduct himself in the time of sickness and of
trouble ? — First of all, he made his sorrow a question between
himself and God. An old divine has said, as the woman in story
appealed from pillar to pillar, so does David fly from God's anger
to God's grace. David did not regard it in its earthward aspect ;
there was something in his trouble more than mere bodily pain,
and something more than mere political disaffection. Let us set it
down as a stern fact that there is a moral secret under the whole
* Trapp, the commentator, says : " In this and some other psalms David
begins so heavily, ends so merrily, that we might think they had been
composed by two men of a contrary humour. Every new man is two men.
(Rom. vii.). The Shulamite hath in her ' as it were the company of two
armies' (Song of Sol. vi. 13). The Lord also chequereth his providence
white and black, he speckleth his work (represented by those speckled
horses, Zech. i. 8) ; mercies and crosses are interwoven."
Psalm vi.] SORROW AND SUCCOUR, 59
figure and movement of human life. Wherever we find disorder
we find sin. This doctrine puts an end to much of the false com-
plaining to which we are accustomed in Church life and experience.
Men profess to be seeking for causes and explanations which lie
quite remote from the real origin of the distress. We should never
forget that all pain, suffering, and misery flow from one fountain
whose unchangeable name is Sin. " Sin brought death into our
world."
Secondly, proceeding from this point, David proceeds to make
things right between himself and God. He feels that it is of no
use to trump up a peace with Absalom. It is a waste of time
to be arranging things that are secondary until things that are
primary are established upon a footing righteous and secure.
David seems to have said to himself: " My son Absalom has set
himself against me ; I might excite public pity on the ground of
filial ingratitude; but is there not a cause in myself? Have I
not done wrong, and become infamous in wickedness before the
Lord ? Is not God employing Absalom as a scourge to punish
me for my own grievous rebellion against himself? " Such
questions bring the soul into a right temper, and deliver it from
the fretfulness of narrow views. It is waste of labour to decorate
the walls when the foundations are giving way. In all trouble
go first in self-reproach to God and get at the cause of things.
" Come, and let us return unto the Lord : for he hath torn, and
he will heal us ; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up." The
whole philosophy of human sorrow lies in this one determination.
We exalt God in sovereignty above all great providences, and we
have no hesitation in describing him as directing all operations
to a common issue : but even in this broad acknowledgment of
God's supremity we may not sufficiently fix the mind upon the
fact that every detail of life is under the superintendence of God's
wisdom, and that not a sorrow afflicts the soul which he does not
either directly inflict or lovingly permit. God is not the God oJ
the fair day only, the great broad shining day ; he is the God
of the night ; at his command the stars glitter and the planets
serenely burn.
In the third place, David feels that if the Lord's hand be
removed he can bear all other troubles. Sin is the disease;
6o THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm vi.
discomforts, revolts, losses are the mere symptoms : remove the
disease, and the symptoms will disappear. The pain of trouble
is in the feeling that it is deserved ; could we be perfectly sure of
our innocence, the suffering would have no effect upon us, except
rather to encourage and stimulate us, and certainly chasten us
into a truer refinement of temper. Innocent men can be calm in
the midst of persecution and pain and loss. Innocence is as a
comforting angel sent from heaven to sustain the heart. It is
when the soul knows that every pain that shoots through the
life is a pain that is deserved that the whole being quivers with
agony and all strength fails from the spirit. This is our true
condition before God, artd we must acknowledge it to be so if we
are faithful to ourselves.' So long as there lingers in the mind
the superstition that .suffering is not deserved but is arbitrarily
imposed, and expresses the domination of a supreme power rather
than the beneficence of a stern law, we shall be without consola-
tion or strength or hope in all the discipline of life. Take away
the righteousness of the suffering, and then suffering is as an
open door into our life through which the angels come. The
innocent man is never in solitude, unless it be for one agonising
moment to be succeeded by all the glory and peace of heaven.
David approaches God in utter self-renunciation ; there is no
word of self-defence as before God. This is needful in all prayer
that is meant to prevail. This state of mind does away with
the whole machinery of argument, witnesses, criticism, and cross-
examination. It resolves the question into one of mercy. David
prays the more earnestly, because his afflictions have brought him
within sight of the grave and the world unseen. Who would
enter the valley without a sense of forgiveness ? Who would ?
We must enter that dark valley,— we enter it either forgiven or
unpq'"doned.
Now the light returns. David knows that ~ his prayer is
answered. The next work is easyi It is merely a question of
time. Be right with God, and your foes cannot touch you.
" Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity ; for the Lord hath heard the
voice of my weeping " (ver. 8).
A very full verse is this. It shows that David is not only not
Psalm vi.] SORROW AND SUCCOUR. 6i
content with prayer being answered ; he must dissociate himself
from all wicked men and wicked concerns. If David looked upon
the wicked in this instance as his pursuers and his enemies, he was
right to bid them begone; but there is another sense in which
the workers of iniquity may follow us, namely, in the sense of
temptation and seduction and forced companionship : we shall
know that the Lord hath heard the voice of our weeping when
we are able to bid such men depart from us, because they can
-find nothing in our hearts that responds to their evil purposes.
Thus prayer makes men morally strong. They can say things
after prayer which they could not have said before prayer ; or if
they did say them the words would be wanting in pith and force;
we need to have our tongues made strong by the exercise of
prayer before it can effectively speak to 'th^ workers of iniquity
and bid them flee away from our path. A wonderful alternation
of weakness and energy is found throughout this psalm. David
is so weak that one angry word would have destroyed him ;
so he deprecates the anger and the displeasure of the Most
High : he is so weak that only mercy must breathe upon him or
touch him or venture to speak to him : every bone in his body
is withering, and his soul is in extreme dismay. By reason of
incessant groaning he has become weary, and his strength has
been dissolved in tears, and as for his eye, it is consumed because
of grief, and it has waxed old as if by the multiplication of years.
Now he has been in prayer he rises from his knees like a giant
refreshed ; his weariness has been accepted as a petition, and his
weeping has been regarded as a plea for renewal of strength ;
mark how he rises from his knees and makes the workers of
iniquity flee before him. That is the true Amen with which God
follows all earnest prayer. If we still dally with the foe, and
compromise with our enemies, and speak in hesitating tones to
those who would do us injury, we may know of a certainty that
how eloquent soever our prayer may have been in words, it has
been unheard in heaven or rejected with divine contempt.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, do thou take account of our sorrow, and consider our
trouble when we are in great and sore distress. Thou knowest that there
are nights in which no star can be seen, there are seas which are all storm,
tempests without measure, not to be passed but with infinite danger. But
thou reignest ; thy throne is in the heavens which are high ; j^et are thine
eyes upon the earth, upon the meanest of its creatures and the most trivial
of its concerns. The Lord's hand is stretched out towards all his children ;
they have a place in his heart — secure, inviolable, eternal. This is their
joy, their hymn in the night-time, their psalm in the morning, their victory
all the day. Draw nigh unto us, Holy One ; keep us as in the hollow of thy
hand ; let our walls be continually before thee ; may our name be unto thee
as a pleasant rr>emorial, and all our concerns interest thy wisdom and thy
love. We will fear no evil ; yea, though we walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, our heart shall be stout in God, for thy rod and thy staS
they comfort us, and in the valley is an infinite light. J Blessed one, Christ
of God, Son of God, walk with us in the valley, climb the hill with us, shield
us when the air is full of darts aimed at our life, and comfort us with exceed-
ing comfort when consolation is the only medicine we require. We bless
thee for all heroic souls, for all patient spirits, for all men who have done the
will of God, and for those other and equally noble men who have suffered it
without murmur, complaint, or reproach against heaven. Order our life
during the few remaining days it has yet to run ; may they be days of industry,
days of consecration to heavenly labour, and therefore days like Sabbaths,
full of restfulness and expectation and joy, not to be spoken in the words of
man. Wash us, and we shall be clean ; give us the sprinkling of blood
which means pardon, acceptance, adoption; give us the indwelling Spirit
of God, that, walking under his counsel, comforted by his solaces, directed
by his wisdom, our lives may be spent in all holiness, patience, and good-
doing. Amen.
Psalm vii.
[Note. — This psalm was composed when David and his band were sur-
rounded by the snares which had been laid for them by the agents of Saul.
The psalm was occasioned by the treachery of Gush. The word Shiggaion,
which is at the head of it, is a musical term, and probably denotes a lyrical
composition indicative of high mental excitement. The first part, of five
verses, closes with " Selah." The remainder is divisible into two parts of
six verses each; but the last verse stands alone, in all probability as a
simple interjection.^]
Psalm vii.] HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 63
X. O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust : save me from all them that
persecute me, and deliver me :
2. Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is
none to deliver.
3. O Lord my God, if I have done this ; if there be iniquity in my hands ;
4. If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me ; (yea, I
have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy :)
5. Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it ; yea, let him tread down
my life upon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust. Selah.
6. Arise, O Lord, in thine anger, lift up thyself because of the rage of
mine enemies : and awake for me to the judgment that thou hast com-
manded.
7. So shall the congregation of the people compass thee about : for their
sakes therefore return thou on high.
8. The Lord shall judge the people : judge me, O Lord, according to my
righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.
9. Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end ; but establish the
just : for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.
10. My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in heart.
11. God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked
every day.
12. If he turn not, he will whet his sword ; he hath bent his bow and
made it ready.
13. He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth
his arrows against the persecutors.
14. Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and
brought forth falsehood.
15. He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he
made.
16. His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing
shall come down upon his own pate.
17. I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness: and will sing
praise to the name of the Lord most high.
HUMAN EXPERIENCE.
DAVID was young when this psalm was written. There is
a good deal of youthful force and urgency in its noble
terms. Is there not a youthful style of composition, in which
everything is superlative, towering, forceful, wanting, if in any-
thing, in moderation ? This man has no doubt about himself, —
what young man ever has? He is perfectly sure that heaven
cannot regard him but with complacency. His life has been
comparatively short; he can count its days, and examine each,
and pronounce upon each day and say, " Well-kept " — a day of
religious recognition of the nearness of God, and of religious
64 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm vii.
service towards his fellow creatures. The enemy Cush the
Benjamite was all wrong. What man could ever see two sides
of a case ? Who, being persecuted and overborne, did not feel
that he was the injured party, and that the other man was a very
child of darkness, given over to a strong delusion to believe a
lie ? Who Cush was we need not inquire, because he lives
every day. Cush was a Benjamite, an Ethiopian, a black man —
most black, in and out, in David's eyes. Is there not an
Ethiopian before every man — a black spot, a black difficulty, a
black storm — but for which all the outlook would be beautiful
as a summer morning ? Who does not feel that there is a cold
Shadow on the road he slowly treads — not a shadow he can
cross and leave behind him, but a shadow that accompanies him,
that will play the unwelcome companion to his steps, that will
sometimes almost rise from the ground and look at him hideously
and defiantly ? We cannot get rid of that shadow. It comes in
all kinds of forms and in all kinds of measure; but, to a certamty,
there it is. David is in a court ; David is surrounded by splen-
dour; David is in many respects and relations a high favourite;
he can do what many other men cannot do ; he can make the
harp vibrate with music to please the ear of the king ; he is
sought after; and yet the Ethiopian looks at him and kills all
the sunshine ; when he passes by, Cush the Benjamite utters
a hiss which takes out of David's life all its young hope. Is it
not so to-day ? and will it not be so to the end of the chapter ?
And is it not true — account for it as we may — that the difficulty
destroys the enjoyment, the one thin dark line shuts out the sun,
blots out the radiant heavens, and makes life very burdensome ?
Why should it be thus ? We have a thousand mercies; we own
the number ; there is no dispute about the arithmetical count :
the mercies are a thousand strong ; but there is one shadow, one
hindrance, one trouble, one little stubborn gate we cannot open ;
and under the influence of that exceptional, even solitary circum-
stance the thousand mercies go for nothing. Cush may have
been Saul himself. It may have been the king that made David's
life a burden to him. Yet he was in the king's service and in
the king's pay. He lived more or less in the king's house, and
he liked to be there. There was in him something that said,
" This man ?ind his kingliness is a relation of mine. I have a
Psalm vii.] HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 65
long way to look up to see his towering head, and sometimes I
am almost afraid of him ; it seems as if by closing his fingers
upon me he could crush me. Yet, I cannot account for it, there
is something in me that likes the man, that claims him as one
of my own kindred ; he and I seem to be in the same lineage, I
could run away from the palace, and yet I could not ; I could
shatter the harp, yet my fingers will not break a string of it. \
would I were done with this royal subservience, and yet I like it;
it is slavery, and yet it is worship ; it has a hateful aspect, and
yet it wins me by a blessed fascination." That is human ex-
perience. The thing we cannot live without is sometimes the
thing that hinders us most. The difficulty is in close quarters
with our life ; we have not to travel far to get at it ; it is round
about us, insidiously, sometimes invisibly, always uncomfortably.
How, then, will David act in sorrow ? That is the great and
abiding inquiry. Now that he is in distress we shall hear what
wondrous tones there are in the throat of sorrow : —
" O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust " (ver. i).
A direct appeal to heaven without any intervention. This bodes
well for the young suppliant. Though a king be set against him'
he will cleave the king in two ; his sword shall go right through
helmet and skull and body. He wins who speaks in this tone.
To what God does he appeal ? — " my God." What does he
offer his God ? — " my trust." There is a grand simplicity in this
worship. This is not literary praise ; it is the praise of the
rising, inspired, troubled, but confident heart. We pray when we
are in sorrow — somewhat jerkingly, incoherently, impetuously,
but it is all prayer; and sometimes when the quiet days come
we gather up our rough and jagged sentences, often apparently
so unrelated one to the other, and make music of them. The
words that are startled out of the soul are words that might
never flow from the artistic pen, but they will bear to be kept,
to be looked upon in after days, and to be brought into reconcilia-
tion and harmony ; and then we prize them as men prize the
very throbbing of the heart.
Why pray so loudly, clearly, and distinctly? Because the
enemy is mighty, and he may " tear my soul like a lion, rending
it in pieces, while there is none to deliver " (ver. 2). If it
VOL. XII. 5
66 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm vii.
be a question merely between man and man, woe betide the
weak ! If the great battles of human existence are to be
measured by the strength of the contending parties, virtue will
be thrown down, discrowned, destroyed. But there are times
when there must be a God : controversy would be intolerable ;
doubt would be out of place — not blasphemy against heaven, but
blasphemy against the agonised heart. In these dark times we
may be said to create a God. Judge these high questions in
your high moods ; there is no intellectual ladder that you can
set up against this mystery, and by which you can climb your
way into the presence of the throne : the heart can fly all the
distance, counting the separating constellations nothing in the
exercise of its infinite strength, created by infinite trust. What
we have lost in all these matters may be described as the divine
fire. We have thought to beat cold iron into shape. Iron will
only obey the hammer and the hand when fire has undertaken
to do the intermediate work : it "is when the soul is on fire that
we have no doubt about God. When we are prosperous, too
highly indulged, even sated with luxury and "plenty, we play the
agnostic, the atheist, the speculative thinker ; but when circum-
stances change, when the floor gives way, when the earth rocks,
when the sun blinks, as if in mortal fear, and shuts out the day ;
when the child dies, and when all nature seems to be set in array
against the progress of life, — then the real man within us will
talk : the day of indifference will have departed, the time of
agonised earnestness will have set in; and when agony is
stinging the soul and darkness is accumulating itself upon the
life like a burden, then let man say whether he is imbecile,
whether he is unworthy of the related condition of things, and
of the sovereignty which overrules and guides and crowns them
all. We cannot listen to the cold man. We will not allow such
a man to come into this holy place of the innermost thought;
he cannot speak this language of the spirit; he is in a foreign
universe ; he must depart. Imagine not that religion is a
subject to be talked over flippantly, easily, off-handedly, as if
one opinion were as good as another, and as if the possessor
of an opinion had come straight from the eternal throne with a
special revelation; we can only understand these mysteries when
we are plunged in sorrow, or when we are exalted with a pure
Psalm vii.] HUMAN EXPERIENCE. 67
and even celestial joy. David's young heart was true to such
principles as these. He did not undervalue the foe ; he called
him a " lion " ; and he saw that he was no longer safe if God
did not intervene.
Now he pleads his innocence :—
" O Lord my God, if I have done this ; if there be iniquity in my hands ;
if I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace v^rith me ; (yea, I have
delivered him that without cause is mine enemy :) let the enemy persecute
my soul, and take it ; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and
lay mine honour in the dust " (vers. 3-7).
A wonderful image is this of "palming" iniquity. The conjurer
lives by palming ; the conjurer's occupation would be gone if we
could palm as well as he. We know not that there is something
in his great hand ; on the contrary, he so plays with it and
displays it that the idea never occurs to us that there is anything
inside it : but for daj'^s he has studied how to hold the piece of
paper or the thing he is playing with; it is there, but nobody
knows it. So the Psalmist says, — I am not palming iniquity,
hiding it in the hollow of my hand, and then lifting up my hand
as if in prayer ; there is my hand, open ; any man may touch it,
and if he can find evil in that palm then let him strike, then
let him crush me with just penalty. That is a grand appeal, and
it is possible to every man. But who could bear to have both
hands laid open and all the fingers separated that there might
be nothing hidden ? Such hands may be lifted up in prayer.
Who shall approach unto the hill of the Almighty and come
nigh before God with prevailing intercession ? " He that hath
clean hands." Here again is youthful frankness, youthful con-
fidence. Were not we better in our youth than we are in our
advancing life ? Was there not a time when the dewy rose
typified our moral beauty and purity ? Were we not once
conscious of having wroaged no man ? But is not life a growing
complication ? and when we have not done the straight and
direct wrong, have we not in some way gone round about and
come in from a great distance and related ourselves to some
form of injustice, unkindness, wickedness? These are searching
questions ; they bring the soul up to judgment, and they allow
the soul to pass sentence on itself. W^ho would not be young
again ? Who would not accept the poet's suggestion to go back
68 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm vii.
by his yesterdays and die a little child ? We love to hear
David's young eloquence. He has no doubt of his integrity in
this particular matter. Not only so, his position is not negative ;
there is a parenthesis in the fourth verse that is a high com-
mendation : " Yea, I have delivered him that without cause is
mine enemy," — not only have I done no wrong, I have done
actual good ; I have seen my enemy in distress, yea, in great
and thick perplexity, and when there was no man to help him
I have gone and completed the extrication. Yet now am I the
object of envy, jealousy, and evil bodings. Let them prove what
they say. It is envy that is operating in the soul. If the charge
were direct, and, so to say, tangible, so that I could get hold of
it, I would handle it like a man ; but it is a look, an exclamation,
a sign with meaning in it, a shrug suggestive ; I cannot get hold
of that : " If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace
with me ; . . . let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it ;
yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine
honour in the dust." I am not the man to shrink from conse-
quences, but I demand the proof; I defy the criticism ; I am
ready for the result. Purity is always courageous. " The
righteous are bold as a lion." Not so the wicked : "The wicked
flee when no man pursueth." A leaf, crisp in the autumn time,
fell upon the path the wicked man was treading, and he ran away
as if a wolf had been loosed upon his track. Do not defy where
the morality is not equal to the occasion, for such defiance but
aggravates the guilt it was intended to conceal. Be of a right
mind towards God. Let the purpose of life be on the whole
sound, good, and upward, and then leave your enemies in the
hands of God.
David presents a view of the case which is full of noble
meaning. He presents the case as that of an innocent man being
delivered by the Lord, saved from the rage of his enemies ; and
then he pictures the whole congregation of the people compassing
the deliverer about ; and he adds : —
"For their sakes therefore return thou on high " (ver. 7).
The meaning is : these people are looking on; they are wondering
at me and about the treatment of which I am the subject ; if thou
wilt come and deliver me and magnify my cause, vindicating my
Psalm vii.] tiUMAJST EXPERIENCE. 69
innocence, all these people will compass thee about with songs ;
they will worship thee and bless thee because thou hast shown
thyself to be on the side of the righteous. Perhaps this was
a selfish view, but who can escape selfishness altogether? It
follows us about : it is our very self. Yet there is a truth in
this method of depicting the case. The good will rejoice with
the good. Wherever a good man is delivered, promoted, set on
high above the rage of those who are against him, he is not left
there in solitude; the whole congregation takes up the hymn,
praises God with a loud voice, says : " This is the Lord's doing,
and it is marvellous in our eyes." So through his providences
God brings honour and glory to his throne.
David had no difficulty in invoking a tremendous punishment
upon his enemies. But the language must be judged by the
times in which it was employed. Not only so, every man has
his own language. In a sense there is a common tongue, but in
another sense there is a private and individual tongue. You
must know the speaker before you can understand the speech.
The man explains the mystery that is round about him. Could
we be but one day with some men whom we now wonder about
and accuse of inconsistency and eccentricity, we should see the
whole explanation, and give confidence where we now perhaps
accord but doubtful trust. There is a key which opens every
man's character. If you do not get the key you are doing the
man an injustice in trying to understand him otherwise. You
have not the key of the gate; you cannot climb over it, you
cannot open it except with the key, and without the key you
stand back and misconstrue and misrepresent and misjudge the
gate altogether ; whereas it you had but that one little key the
lock would answer it in a moment, and the gate almost open of
itself, and beyond it there would be liberty and security and the
joy of protective friendship. So it is with language. David's
language was very strong ; but David was a poet, and a Hebrew
poet — a poet of poets. All the poetry that had gone before him
was but as a pedestal on which he stood to lift himself and his
art into a nobler elevation. We must not, therefore, judge
David's language, especially when he is imprecatory, with our
critical notions of propriety and measure. No other terms would
70 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm vii.
have expressed his then feeling. Were he with us now, none
would be so sweet in song, none so tender in prayer. Why,
even in his day he sang. He concludes this complaint against
Cush the Benjamite — the black man — with a determination to
sing. The seventeenth verse says : —
"I will praise the Lord according to his righteousness: and will sing
praise to the name of the Lord most high."
The psalm comes in with a tone of sorrow and loneliness, but
it goes out with cymbals and dances, and songs and utterances of
triumph. We thought in the earlier part of the psalm that David
had never sung in his life, or if he had, he certainly would never
sing again. He seems to write himself out of his misery, as men
now pray themselves out of their trouble. When the prayer begins,
the listener says, " How heavily loaded is that heart with sorrow !
Surely that life is distressed beyond all possibility of recovery !
Oh how sad and mournful and pensive the utterance of that
heart ! " And lo ! the man talks over his case with God, goes
into critical detail about it, mentions everything he can recollect;
and the tone subtly changes all the while, and behold, at the last,
the man is singing: the prayer has blossomed into a song, and
he who began with supplication ended with praise. So it may
be in our life ; there is room enough, enemies enough there are
no doubt, and difficulties apparently innumerable and insur-
mountable. Never under-estimate these difficulties. You cannot
lecture a man out of sorrow. Encourage him rather to go over
his sorrow, to mention it syllable by syllable, letter by letter;
and when he has continued the story a long time, ask him if he
cannot recollect something more, even more deeply distressing in
its nature. Encourage him to tell all that is in his heart. Be
good listeners. It soothes poor misery hearkening to her tale.
Ask. her to tell it over again ; ask if she is quite sure that you
heard the statement correctly; and by this sympathetic cross-
examination, by this companionship of soul, you will extract the
sorrow ; and the heart, without any exhortation from the listener,
will begin to recover itself, to take down its harp from the willows ;
and you, who entered into a house of mourning, shall find your-
self presently at a wedding feast, swinging round in infinite
delight in the sacred dance before the Lord, because the rain
is over and gone, and the time of the singing of birds has come.
Psalm viii.
[Note. — One critic has called this a lyric echo ot the first chapter of
Genesis. The best critics do not doubt the David ic authorship. The word
"Gittith" in the title is rendered by the LXX. and Vulgate " for the wine-
presses." Another derivation makes it a kind of flute. Other critics think
that the most probable explanation connects it with Gath, the Philistine
town. According to a Talmudic paraphrase, "upon Gittith" should be read,
"on the kiiinor which was brought from Gath," thus making it a kind of
Philistine lute, as there was an Egyptian flute and a Doric lyre. It is not
supposed that the title has any reference to the subject. We learn here
what is nature, and what is law; what is degeneracy and breach of law;
and that God has ordained for himself, in the unconscious praise of their
Creator from the mouths of babes and sucklings, a stronghold against the
noisy clamour of apostate men, who rebel against the divine order, and
lay upon Gud the blame of their own aberration from his order.]
1. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth ! who
hast set thy glory above the heavens.
2. Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength
because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the
avenger.
3. When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and
the stars, which thou hast ordained ;
4. What is man, that tliou art mindful of him ? and the son of man, that
thou visitest him ?
5. For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast
crowned him with glory and honour.
6. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou
hast put all things under his feet :
7. All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field ;
8. The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth
through the paths of the seas.
9. O Lord our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth I
GOD'S GLORY IN THE HEAVENS.
THE object of this psalm is to magnify the name of God.
Whatever else is in the psalm is pictorial and of the nature
of detail. The one great object of the utterance is to praise and
magnify the name of the Lord. The name is the Lord. W-e
72 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm viii.
have debased names. We have used them arbitrarily. They
express our fancy, or they connect us in some way with family
history ; but they do not incarnate the soul's innermost quality
and thought. They ought to do so. Names ought not to be
lightly bestowed ; the name should be the man. Beware, there-
fore, bow names are attached to children, which names have
been stigmatised In history ; for suggestion is very subtle in
its operation. Beware, too, how great names are thrown away
upon possibly unworthy objects. Great names are not to be
bandied about, thrown from one to another, until all their glory
is emptied out and all their power is wasted. Names are realities
in the Scriptures, in many places. Here and again there have
been great misapplications of names, but the meaning was that
the name should be the man. The name of God, therefore, is
God himself. "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy
God in vain." You cannot touch the name, and leave the God
untouched. What exercise can be more edifying, more spiritu-
ally expanding and comforting, than to praise or magnify the
name of the Lord ? Let us watch the process in the psalm. It
is full of simple beauty, partly astronomical, partly pastoral.
It does us good to go to nature. The Psalmist considered the
" heavens," " the moon, and the stars." Good nature ! sweet
mother ! What medicine is like her smile, or her breath, or her
benediction ! What a sanctuary is on the top of her mountains;
what altars are in the sighs of her winds ; what immortality, as
it were, breathes across her seas ! " Lift up thine eyes," said
God to a dejected one, " and behold." It does us good to look
upward : there is a healing influence in space — its vastness, its
purity, its solemnity. What can they be who have never seen the
sky ? There are millions of men who have never seen it, because
they have never looked at it ; it seems to be no business of
theirs ; they seem to have no relation to it ; they forget that if
there u ere no sky, there could be no earth; if there were no
sun, there could be no food to eat. But men do not connect
things ; they are not logical ; they do not perceive sequences,
and trace results to origins. And many are so shut up that
they cannot see the sky, only little blue strips of it, with space
jnough for a star or two ; but the great city of stars — the infinite
Psalmviii.] GOD'S GLORY IN THE HEA VENS. 73
metropolis of light, they have never seen. If they could see —
really see it — they would lose all their care and fear, and their
tears would be but part of the common rain that makes the
earth glad. But men will not look up ; they live with inclined
heads ; and who ever saw anything in the earth but a grave ?
The earth is not worth thinking about, except as a part of
something else. It is the tiniest little place you can imagine ;
it is a mere button of a thing — a little whirling speck which
never would be missed, they tell us, were it to go spark out.
What have we to do with the earth ? It gives us a foothold, and
supplies us with certain means of bodily living ; but it is when
we "consider" the "heavens," and "the moon and the stars,"
and the whole host of night, that we are lifted up into new dignity
and restfulness. We should think more of nature. The green
field should be more precious to us — not because it is one acre
and a half in extent, but because it is verdant, fresh, living,
throbbing with ten thousand pulses, waiting to be cultivated,
waiting to help our needy life. Who ever brought sorrow back
from the mountain-top ? Many a man has carried sorrow up
the hill; we have watched him, and seen his bent form, and
said : How heavy is the burden he carries ! Do not speak to
him, for the mere answering of a question will only add to the
weight he sustains. He has no breath to spare ; let him alone.
Mark how he toils, trudges, stoops, sighs I Still, let him alone.
He goes higher and higher, and great mother-nature says, " Ten
more steps, and you are at the top ; " and when he reaches the
summit, and looks round and sees what a wide sky it is, and
how pure and how musical, he stretches himself; he is being
transformed ; he has thrown off ten years now, presently ten
more, and he says : I will take heart again ; things are not so
gloomy as they looked down at the foot of the hill. Behold, God
is here, and I knew it not I This is none other than the house
of God, and this is the gate of heaven ! Now see how he comes
down — leaping, singing, as young as ever. He thought to die
on the mountain-top, and lo ! God has sent him back to take
hold of the plough with both hands, to go into the field of war
and fight like a man. Why brood ? Why gather your knees
into the fire and warm yourself in patches, instead of going out
and making yourself warm by the motion of the whole frame,
74 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm viii.
and drinking in fire from the sun of the heavens ? Many persons
have come to me in religious dejection, and I have always ordered
them — they thought, perhaps, imperiously — to the mountains, to
the green fields ; and have sent them maying and daisy-gathering,
and they have come back from the buttercup-field as glad as I
was, and sometimes twice as strong. We have despised nature.
She is God's minister, apostle, the medium through which he
pours infinite gospels, if we had ears to hear them.
The Psalmist would be unjustly treated if we abandoned him,
as it were, here. David makes a religious use of nature : " Thy
heavens . . . thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou
hast ordained." It does look as if they might have been made
by God. In truth, now we think about it, there is nothing
startling in the suggestion. Could we have lifted up any one
of these planets into its place ? Have we span enough in our
little arms to stretch out the heavens like a tent ? Now that
some one says, in the night season, when all the stars are out,
" God made them," it seems rational to believe it ; the making
of them would seem to be worthy of a God. How harmonic
in movement ! how calm ! Always giving away their light, and
never keeping a single gleam of it for themselves ; never coming
into collision one with the other, but whirling, circling, coursing,
never ceasing — millions of them. When one says, in a period
of contemplation, " My Father made them all," he does not seem
to be much of a fanatic, or an enthusiast, or a word-rhyming
poet, but a man of sense and gravity, and responsible thought-
fulness. " An undevout astronomer is mad," said the author of
the " Night Thoughts," and that sentiment has never been dis-
proved. We are not called upon to look at the heavens furtively,
for a moment only, but we are called upon to " consider thy
heavens," to measure them, weigh them, traverse them, so far
as we can, and put together, as it may be revealed, their purpose,
their design, their issue.
It is very notable what use is made of the same heavens and
moon and stars by men who have been in the company of Jesus
Christ. In David we have wonder. Peter, the rude fisherman,
who has been with Christ, comes and looks at them, and he
says, " The heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and
Psalm viiL] GOD' S GLORY IN THE HEAVENS. 75
the elements shall melt with fervent heat." This is the teaching
of great David's greater Son. He, too, would have us consider
the fowls of the air, and the flowers of the field, and all the
handiwork of God ; but not to rest there, not to be mere natural-
ists, flower-gatherers, and star-gazers : he would have us reason
upward. If God can do this, he can do more ; this is a worthy
intermediate revelation, but not a worthy final disclosure of
God. If this, the beginning, be so beautiful, who can forecast
the culmination, when the true idea stands revealed ?
David founds an argument upon his contemplation of nature : —
"What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that
thou visitest him ? " (ver. 4).
The Psalmist is not instituting a humiliating contrast between
man and nature. The fifth verse proves this : —
"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels" [R.V. "God"],
"and hast crowned him with glory and honour."
Man is the second name on the register ; God signs first, and,
passing the pen to man, he signs second. "Thou hast made him
a little lower than God." Sometimes he seems to be almost God.
His face reddens with an inward light, and his voice trembles
under an emotion which expresses things infinite. He contem-
plates nature to no purpose who looks upon it until he begins to
feel his own littleness only. That is not the right method of
reasoning about nature. There is nothing in all the heavens that
can compare, so far as it is material, with the tiniest babe that
coos in its mother's arms. We must reason upward from nature
to man, not downward from outward and material frameworks to
man. Man is greater than all he sees. Picture an observer
looking at a great hill. He looks at it and says, "What is man?"
Why, there is nothing in all that hill that man cannot grind to
powder and throw away, scatter in the wind or sink in the sea.
Man does look little in stature when he stands against the Andes
or the great Himalayan group. He feels physically small. But
suddenly he says : After all, what is that hill ? I will climb it,
stand upon the top of it, plant a banner there, and call myself
conqueror. So he may. There is no hill in all the world that
man cannot climb, or cast down, and thus humiliate.
All things shall contribute towards securing a realisation of
76 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm viii.
his greatness as meant by God. Man was meant to have
"dominion " : —
"Thou mad est him to have dominion over the works of thy hands;
thou hast put all things under his feet " (ver. 6).
Now the Psalmist puts the right view of the case. Everything
is under the foot of man. " Thou madest him to have dominion."
"Dominion" is a far-reaching word; we have not yet thrown
our measuring-line upon it and realised all its suggestion and
inspiration. Is there not a stirring sometimes in the heart,
which means: I was meant to be king; I was meant to be
master ; I was meant to exercise dominion — dominion over the
enticements of matter ; it was intended that I should be able to
say to the most fascinating spectacles that could appeal to me
— Stand back ! Man was meant to have dominion over the
satisfactions of sense. Say, is it not quite heroic, in some small
way at least, that a man shall be able to say to a habit : I have
done with thee ; you do not leave this day fortnight — you leave
now ! That is what God means man to be and to do in regard
to everything that is not of the nature of God himself. It is
useless, and worse than useless, even pitiful and weak, for a man
to say that some habit has got such a hold of him that he cannot
shake it ofi. That doctrine must never be allowed. Such a
man must go to his friends, and say : I cannot do it alone, but
you must help me : lock me up ; build walls seven feet thick all
round me, and help me, for the devil is hard upon me. A man
who is so habit-ridden must not trust the case to himself or to
his own handling ; he must say : I have uncrowned myself, I
have lost the charter by which I hold my manhood and my life :
take pity upon me, take care of me ; do not consider that I have
any will in this matter — oh, save me 1 And to others a word of
caution should be spoken to this effect : Before the habit gets
such hold upon you, be sure that you secure the upper hand over
the habit. Man was made to have " dominion," in the largest
sense. It is well to put our very habits through a process of
discipline, supposing the habit to be not altogether wicked. It
is well for every man to say to it : I am going to have nothing to
do with* you for one whole month ; stand back until I call you.
Habits take liberties. They are weaving webs around the life
when the life is not suspecting the operation. It is well for a
Psalm viii.] GOD' S GLORY IN THE HEAVENS. 77
man to say about his eating and drinking and sleeping : I am
going to alter all of you ; a new bill of directions shall guide my
life for a month ; every hour shall be changed, and every habit
shall be driven out until I ask it to resume its place. Thus the
man is exercising his right ; he is realising the domination which
God meant him to exercise over all things — "all sheep and oxen,
yea, and the beasts of the field ; the fowl of the air, and the fish
of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas"
(vers. 7, 8). Is it worth while that we should be able to hold
all these things in dominion if we cannot hold ourselves in check?
The great aim of every life should be self-control. A man should
say : I will not speak to-day, nor eat, nor go abroad ; I will keep
myself in subjection, lest after having preached to others, I
myself should be a castaway. Bitter word, humbling word ! A
" castaway " — something thrown off, without the thrower heeding
where it goes ; it may have been here or there, or over the brink
into the great abyss ; the man who threw it knows not, cares not,
where it is : the thing thrown is a " castaway."
Is there not in all this musical reasoning of the Psalmist a
suggestion of man's immortality ? Do we not feel, after reading
such a contemplation and taking part in it, that the man who
could do all this could do more ? Is there not something within
us which says : This cannot be the end of a man who can con-
sider God's heavens, the moon and the stars ; this cannot be the
end of a creature a little lower than God, crowned with glory and
honour? God does not make such crowns to throw them away;
he does not bestow such honours to follow them with contempt.
Immortality is here by implication. The very greatness of the
man is a proof that he was not meant for extinction. An awful
irony it would be that God should create such a being, and, after
all his poetry and reasoning and prayer, should allow that same
being to fall away into nothingness ! This cannot be. The high
religiousness of this psalm is no loss to man in any aspect.
Religiousness does not disqualify for business. A man is not a
whit the less keen in mental penetration because he has been
lost in religious awe and meditation and worship. He will come
back from the altar a stronger man, being able to see further than
he ever saw before, ^nd to speak with an authority which he
78 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm viii.
never could claim under other circumstances ; having sought first
the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he will be master.
There can be no master but the good man in the long run.
There will be semi-masteries, miniature dominations, temporary
successes — men who wear the clothes of success and honour,
men who may make in tinsel the crowns of gold ; but they will
go down, and at the last there shall only one man stand upon the
earth, crowned and honoured — the good man, the upright in
heart, the believer in Jesus Christ, the man who has been cruci-
fied with the Son of God. All others shall be lost, burned by the
lightning, when God flingeth its flash over the whole heaven.
NOTE.
SE'LAH (npp). This word, which is only found in the poetical books
of the Old Testament, occurs seventy-one times in the Psalms, and three
times in Habakkuk. In sixteen Psahns it is found once, in fifteen twice, in
seven three times, and in one four times — always at the end of a verse,
except in Ps. Iv. 19 [20], Ivii. 3 [4], and Hab. iii. 3, 9, where it is in the
middle, though at the end of a clause. All the Psalms in which it occurs,
except eleven (iii. vii. xxiv. xxxii. xlviii. 1. Ixxxii. Ixxxiii. Ixx.-cvii. Ixxxisc.
cxliii.), have also the musical direction, " to the Chief Musician " (comp. also
Hab. iii. 19) ; and in these exceptions we find the words "iQiP, mizmor
(A. V. "Psalm"), Shiggaion, or Maschil, which sufficiently indicate that
they were intended for music. Besides these, in the titles of the Psalms in
which Selah occurs, we meet with the musical terms ."Vlamoth (xlVi.),
Altaschith (Ivii. lix. Ixxv.), Gittith (Ixxxi. Ixxxiv.), Mahalath Leannoth
(Ixxxviii.), Michtam (Ivii. lix. Ix.), Neginah (Ixi.), Neginoth (iv. liv. Iv. Ixvii.
Ixxvi. ; comp. Hab. iii. 19), and Shushan-eduth (Ix.) ; and on this association
alone might be formed a strong presumption that, like these, Selah itself is
a term which had a meaning in the musical nomenclature of the Hebrews.
What that meaning may have been is now a matter of pure conjecture.
A few opinions may be noticed as belonging to the history of the subject.
Michaelis, in despair at being unable to assign any meaning to the word,
regarded it as an a'obreviation, formed by taking the first or other letters of
three other words {Siippl. ad Lex. Hebr.), though he declines to conjecture
what these may have been, and rejects at once the guess of Meibomius, who
e.stracts the meaning da capo from the three words which he suggests. For
other conjectures of this kind, see Eichhorn's Bibliothek, v. 545. Mattheson
was of opinion that the passages where Selah occurred were repeated either
by the instruments or by another choir : hence he took it as equal to
ritoriiello. Herder regarded it as marking a change of key; while Paulus
Burgensis and Schindler assigned to it no meaning, but looked upon it as an
enclitic word used to fill up the verse. Buxtorf {Lex. Hebr.) derived it from
n'PD, sd/cih, to spread, lay low : hence used as a sign to lower the voice,
like piano. Augusti {Piact. Einl. in d. Ps. p. 125) thor.ght it was an
exclamation, like lialldujah ! and the same view was taken by the late Prof
Lee (Heb. Gr. §243, 2) who classes it among the interjections, and renders
it praise ! "For my own part," he says, "I believe it to be descended from
the root K, 'he blessed,' etc., and used not unlike the word amen, or the
(ioxology, among ourselves." — Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.
PRAYER,
This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven !
Thou dost surprise us by thy presence, even though we know the whole
earth is thine, thou Father of all. We appear to come suddenly upon
thee, and to find thy throne where we did not expect it. Thou art able to
do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask. or think. Even in thine
house thou canst be greater than our imagination; it is not only our Father's
house, hut it is our Father's command that the best robe be brought forth
and a ring of heaven, and that the feast of love be spread. We cannot
follow thee in all the way of thy love^ Thou art always doing more than
our imagination led us to expect. We are always in the presence of thy
great care and tender mercy ; yet now and again it surprises us by some
new beauty, some deeper pathus, some profounder assurance of fatherly
regard. We are glad to be in thy house, for it is as a chamber of
banqueting. Thy banner over us is Love : thine invitation is, Eat and
drink abundantly O beloved : at thy feast there is more at the end than
there was at the beginning. This is a miracle of love, a marvel — not to be
comprehended — of compassion and bounteousness. Thou hast always been
patient with us : thou mightest have crushed our infirmity; thou mightest
have carried us away as with a flood ; in the night-time thou mightest have
caused our little life to disappear, so that in the morning it could no more
be found : but like as a father pitieth his children so thou hast pitied us in
our feebleness and in our low estate ; thou hast counted nothing belonging
to us unworthy of thy notice — the very hairs of our head are all numbered.
As for thy patience, thy longsuffermg, thy watching at the door of the heart,
and Ihine attendance upon us — what words can express our conception of
these ? We are lost in wonder, love, and praise ! We cannot keep pace
with God. Behold, there is no number that can set forth his mercy;
neither is there any reckoning that can represent his compassion ; the
sand upon the seashore and all the stars in the brightest night-time are as
nothing compared with the infinite loving-kindness of God. We think of
the Cross, and remember thy love : by the Cross we are saved ; by the Cross
we find pardon, peace, and a sure expectation of heaven. Thte blood of
Jesus Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin. We pray for one another.
The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much. May
every righteous man pray not only for himself, but for all the household
of God and all the household of humanity. Give grace unto them who
specially need some ministry from heaven, because of manifold temptation,
or great perplexity, or intolerable sorrow. Grant unto those who need
direction in the wilderness a voice that shall say to them, This is the way;
v^
80 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm ix.
walk in it, and be assured of the presence of God ; his rod and his stafi
will comfort you. To those who have been bereaved or are in circum-
stances of special distress, send angels from heaven, who shall speak of
thy care, love, and wisdom, and the meaning of all the chastening provi-
dences of life. Be with those who have left us for a season to go afar,
that they may renew their friendships, or pursue their business, or inquire
into interests covered by their love. Be with all who are in peril on the
sea : make the sea as solid land, and the great winds do thou calm into
healthful and peaceful breezes, and "^ring all travellers to their desired
haven. Accept the thanksgiving of those who remember thy care with love
and praise this day; thou hast raised up some from the bed of affliction;
thou hast re-kindled the lamp of hope in some houses ; thou hast given joy
to some lives that were fast despairing, — these are thy gifts, Parent of good,
Father of all spirits. We take them as from God ; we bless the hand that
gives them, and we ask to show our gratitude by renewed and ever-
enlarging service. Let thy peace be upon us. Hover over us, O Spirit
of purity. Spirit of peace. Take all fear away; make us glad in the
sanctuary of God, and give us to feel that here is the shining of the bright
and morning Star, here is the fruit of the tree of life, here we find God the
Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, in all the plentitude of grace.
Amen.
Psalm ix.
[Note. — In the Septuagint and the Vulgate, Psalms ix. and x. are combined
into one. It is supposed that Psalm xxxiii. had apparently by mistake been
joined to Psalm xxxii. before the collection was made, but Psalms ix. and x.
had not then been separated. From a literary point of view the psalm
was originally alphabetical, partaking of the nature of an acrostic. The
title is " Muth-Labben," the most perplexing of all titles. No conjecture
of the meaning of the Hebrew as it stands has been deemed satisfactory.
The alphabetical arrangement is begun in its completest form ; eveiy clause
of the first stanza begins with Aleph.']
DAVID'S CONCEPTION OP GOD.
THE Psalms must be something more than merely personal
in their utterance and in their meaning. Many of them
must be regarded as moral, and therefore general, rather than
personal, and therefore limited. We propose to treat this psalm
according to that idea, and mark how noble it becomes, and
how entirely and loftily it expresses the thought and feeling of all
£ges. Regard the author of this psalm, not so much as one person,
as an incarnation of the Spirit of Righteousness — then the psalm
becomes ineffable in its comforting thought. Imagine the Spirit
of Righteousness misunderstood, ill-treated, yet patient, long-
suflfering, waiting for the final evolution of God's purpose ; and
Psalm ix.] DAVID'S CONCEPTION OF GOD. 8i
then gladdening, singing, rejoicing, magnifying God's providence in
a loud song, and calling upon the nations to witness how wondrous
is the working of the divine thought in all human ages.
Has not Righteousness often been in great danger? This
would seem to be impossible. How can that which is right ever
be in peril? The answer is in facts, not in reasoning. Right
has never been out of danger, virtue has never had a secure
dwelling-place upon this earth, — that is, a dwelling-place removed
from the possibility of violation or unholy trespass. One would
say that men would know music when they hear it, and would
respond to its tender appeals and sacred persuasion ; but that
imagining is false, — that is to say, it is contradicted by facts
innumerable and stubborn. Men have been deaf even to music •
men have become as adders for deafness even when sweet
gospels have been preached by lips anointed from heaven. It is
no marvel, then, that Righteousness should be in trouble, in
perplexity, suffering loss, mourning under many a painful stroke,
baffled by many a providence which seems to reflect upon itself.
Such is the history of the world : — Righteousness in trouble, in
danger, embarrassed, perplexed, disheartened.
But Righteousness is not a limited force, something measurable
in itself and calculable as to its immediate effects. Anything of
that quality or degree which appears to be righteousness is but a
speculation, an attempt, an attitude. The true righteousness is
associated with the infinite power of God. When Righteousness
is in trouble, God himself may be said, by an allowable accommo-
dation of language, to be in distress: it is not a little human
cause that is embarrassed, or that has lost its way in some maze
of difficulty; it is the living God who is opposed, defied, con-
temned. But does it he within the scope of the finite to mock and
defy the Infinite ? The question is of great importance in specula-
tion, but how can the question be put by any one who has studied
his own nature and is familiar with all the marvels of his own
moral constitution ? This little life is a continual battle with the
Eternal ; this part-life wishes to become the Whole-Life, and is
prepared to eat of any tree the fruit of which will make it as God.
On the other hand, how comforting is the thought, how infinite
VOL. xn. 6 *
S2 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm ix.
in its support, that whenever right is opposed it is God who is
defied ! Whenever goodness is affronted it is the Spirit of good-
ness that is insulted : the offence does not lie as between man
and man, and as between one human thought and another human
thought; where goodness is hindered, perverted, or injured, the
blow of injury is dealt, as it were, upon the very face of God.
What does the outworking of this truth come to? It comes to
this effect: that Righteousness rejoices not in merely personal
victories but in the triumph of truth. The first part of the
fourth verse seems to be merely personal, but the second clause
of the verse is universal. Read : "For thou hast maintained my
right and my cause ; " there we may put so much emphasis
upon the personal pronoun as to make this a merely individual
instance, as if God had specialised one man as against many
men, without inquiring into the merits of the case. The second
clause reads : — "Thou satest in the throne judging ri'^'^'.," That
is the universal tone. Not — God sitting in the .rone selecting
favourites, distributing prizes and rewards according to some
arbitrary law; but God sitting in the throne judging right,
whoever was upon one side or the other of the controversy.
The whole encounter is delivered from the narrovv^ limitation of
personal misundersta^rding and individual combat, and is made
one of rectitude, ar. >bre>od is indicated as taking part with the
right. This is comfort; this, in fact, is the only true and lasting
solace. If there were anything narrow, in the merely personal
sense, in the government and providence of God, we should be
thrown into unrest and faithlessness, or the most humiliating
■^ar ; but make the providence of God turn upon right, and then
every man who does right, or who wishes to be right and to do
right, may lift up his eyes to heaven and say : My help cometh
from the everlasting hills ; I will bear all difficulties bravely, with
a really manful and sweet patience, because in the end right will
be vindicated and crowned. Right is not with any one set of
persons ; right is not a possession guaranteed to any one kind
of office in the Church ; it is a universal term ; it rises like a
universal altar, within whose shadow poor men and needy men,
as well as rich and mighty men, may be gathered in the security
of prayer and in the gladness of assured hope.
Psalm ix.] DAVID'S CONCEPTION OF GOD. 83
Look at the revelation of God which this psalm discloses.
Let us ask the question, What was the Old Testament view of
God ? This psalm may be taken as supplying a pertinent and
noble reply. Not only is there a human condition outlined here
— a condition of great distress, humiliation, and fear — but in the
night-time of the soul's woe the Psalmist vindicates the altar at
which he worships, by a delineation of God, grand in conception
and sublime in language.
In what God is the Psalmist trusting? In a God associated
with marvels, wonders, surprises of power and of love : " I will
show forth all thy marvellous works " (ver. i). The universe
did not appear to be little to the Psalmist. There is nothing
contemptuous in the tone of this man as he reviews the course
of providence and marks the ordinances of nature. His reverence
is touched, his veneration exalts him in worship. No man who
retains h^3ii"everence in all its integrity and nobleness ever really
goes down in loral power : his religion is his force. The
moment he takes an unworthy view of God every pulse dies
out of him ; there is no more pith left in the muscle : but venera-
tion sustains the noblest strength. This is the kind of sentiment
which is full of nourishing ministry and influence. God is
marvellous in works; therefore he must , he marvellous in per-
sonality : about him there is nothing little ate re sense of the mean,
contemptible, or the worthless : everywhere, in blade of grass, in
bird's wing, in great stars and planets, there is wonder, there
is wonder upon wonder, a continuity of marvellousness, a very
infinity of wisdom and power. Let a man seize that idea and
walk in the light of that thought, and even in the night-time 1. j^^
will have songs, and in the hour of affliction he will have
comfort, and when the fig-tree does not blossom he will have
a store of fruit laid up which no hand can take away.
Then the Psalmist's conception of God brings with it an
inspiring and subduing awe. By what name is the Lord called
in this psalm ? In the second verse he is described as " thou
Most High." Language can go no higher. It formulates its little
superlative, and then falls back like a weary bird that can fly
no higher in the direction of God's majesty. The sense of height
84 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm ix.
ennobles men : hence it does the soul good to look steadily up
into the firmament — the arch immeasurable, the sphere bound-
less, in which the very idea of height becomes itself a kind of
natural religion. Both ideas are correct — namely, the idea that
brings God down into the region of human language, wherein
we find endearing words ; hence he is Father, Shepherd, Friend,
Companion : and the other idea, which appears to be in direct
contrast, is equally right — the idea which represents him as the
" Most High," the Eternal, the Unknowable, the infinitely glorious
Lord God, — the idea that baffles language, that pours contempt
on noblest poetry, and enthrones itself on the right hand of the
Majesty on high. These ideas ought never to be vitally dis-
sociated. We must not live too much on the side of God's
revelation which is narrowed by images and names of a merely
human, social, and pastoral kind ; nor must we live too exclusively
on the side of God's nature which is represented by exalted
terms, lofty and unutterable language, expressive of attributes
incomprehensible. We must unite the two sides : now we must
be reverently familiar with God, coming nigh unto him and
speaking with him as friend to friend ; and yet all the while
we must be stirred by the feeling that this is a privilege accorded
to us : a miracle of love, that we should, so to say, touch the
Infinite and yet live, speak to God and yet be but men. But this
experience is not to be defined in words ; the heart must grow
up into this joyous consciousness. There is no irreverence in
the familiarity which calls God Father ; and there is no servility
in the homage which prostrates itself before him, unable to look
at the lustre of his majesty.
The Psalmist's God was everlasting : — " The Lord shall endure
for ever " (ver. 7). We cannot do without that element of duration.
Somehow it appeals to us with a force unique. Anything that
can wither, die, or undergo vital change brings with it more
or less of suspicion when it offers us solace and inspiration and-
strength in all the course of our life ; the soul says, This may
be a broken reed, this may not be the same to-morrow it is
to-day ; who can tell what transitions this offered love may pass
through : what security is there as to its duration ? The Bible
supplies the elenient of eyerlastingness. The Bible, indeed,
Psalm ix.] DAVID'S CONCEPTION OF GOD. 85
makes a good deal of that argument : — " Jesus Christ the same
yesterday, and to-day, and for ever; " " I am the Lord, I change
not." Heavens change, great firmaments may be rolled together
like a scroll ; but God is the same : his years fail not. When
faithful men die, and virtuous causes are troubled, v^re will look
unto the years of the Most High, Into this thought, too, w^e
must grow. As age comes on we feel the value of durability,
continuity, or everlastingness, — the quantity that never changes,
the abiding force : and to have the idea that that abiding force
is associated with right, and always with right, is the supreme
comfort of religious faith or sanctified hope.
But here we could not stop. This would be like living amidst
rocks of incalculable height, but so stern and inhospitable as to
weary us by the very monotony of their greatness. Such scenes
must be visited but occasionally ; it is well to know that they
are accessible ; but taking the year all round, with its varieties
of experience and service, we need something other and quite
different. This other element is supplied by this very psalm.
The flowers are none the less lovely because of the mountains.
Read the ninth verse in explanation of the thought : —
' The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of
trouble."
Now the psalm becomes most human, now the charioteer
alights, and we are able to join the king and speak a common
tongue. It is not given to every man to enter into great moods
of exultation, or to follow the language of majestic poetry ; it is
not every wing that can keep company with the flying few ; but
every now and then the great Bible poets come down to the
earth to gather us all up into a holy brotherhood, to speak some
word that children can unde: stand, that mothers can apply, that
patient heroes can comprehend and utilise. The ninth verse
will live and be quoted when many a grander utterance will be
but distantly and solemnly referred to. We might write these
words, and keep them as a physician in the sick-room, — a silent,
compassionate, divine physician. These words could be carried
to the bed of sickness : — " The Lord also will be a refuge for
the oppressed, a refuge in. times of trouble." That motto will
bear carrying away in our hearts whenever we have a worthy
86 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm ix
battle to fight ; that motto will bear to be quoted and relied upon
in times of great distress and desolation and loss. How wonder-
fully tender is the Old Testament I Who can gather together
all the loving words in the first Testament ? We are ready to
quote the pensively tender and compassionate words of the New
Testament : we think of Jesus and his being a revelation of the
Father : there we are perfectly right ; but we must not forget
that the Old Testament had its tender side. What wondrous
words of love have been breathed heavenward by the oldest
saints ! " Love " is not exclusively a New Testament word.
When a man stood up to tempt Christ and ask the first command-
ment of the law, or what he was to do to inherit eternal life,
Jesus asked him to quote the Old Testament, and in quoting
the Old Testament the man was obliged to say — "Thou shalt
love." And again the second commandment is like the first :
— " Thou shalt love." Now, whatever these terms of sentiment
may be, here is the grand historical fact, that the Old Testament
men in all trouble, difficulty, perplexity, and sorrow represented
God as tender, approachable, long-sufifering, marked by loving-
kindness and tender mercy.
" For the needy shall not ahvay be forgotten : the expectation of the poor
shall not perish for ever " (ver. 1 8).
There is a great space created in the Old Testament for the
poor man. The list of guests at God's table is never completed
until the needy man has a line, as it were, all to himself. The
Old Testament, not less than the New, is the friend of the
virtuous poor, is the refuge and defence of souls whose main
purpose is right, though outward circumstances may seem to
indicate divine displeasure. Observe, this is not mere poverty.
A man is not honoured simply because he has no money, or
simply because he lives in needy circumstances ; the need of his
circumstances must express the poverty of his spirit. Indeed,
the Revised Version reads — " The expectation of the meek shall
not perish for ever." So we are not dealing with a name which
refers to merely outward circumstances, but with a name which
relates to a condition of soul, an attitude of spirit towards God ;
this will destroy a great many sophisms, and cut up by the roots
a great many gourds to which men have been vainly trusting.
No man is lost because he is rich, or saved because he is poor ;
Psalm ix.] DAVID'S CONCEPTION OF GOD. 87
poverty and wealth must have their counterparts in the soul as
to its self-renunciation and its richness of faith and love.
Then, again, the colour changes. Wondrous in colour is this
holy psalm : God so great, yet God so accessible ; the heathen so
mighty, yet the heathen so frail — one day lifting up their heads
in pride and tyranny, another day sunk down in the pit that they
made, and their feet taken in the net which they hid; now the
needy are praying, and now the wicked are cursed ; but " the
wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget
God" (ver. 17). Read: The wicked shall be returned, or turned
back to Sheol, or to punishment, or to condemnation. Read the
text as if that were the right place for wickedness, the very
native place of all evil. Make of this place what we may, put
the thought into what variety of language may be possible, here
remains the fact that wickedness is always disapproved, con-
demned, punished. Why, then, trouble ourselves about mere
words, about the new setting of terms, or the re-colouring of
language ? We never can change the thought that God is against
wickedness, that as to iniquity God is a consuming fire ; he is
never complacent with any badness, with any form of falsehood.
That fact cannot be changed. If that fact could be changed, the
throne of God itself would be overturned. Whilst we may be
discussing the doctrine of hell, whilst we may be changing the
word " hell " for terms which hardly smite us with so pitiless a
severity, we must never forget that the end of wickedness is
perdition; the wages of sin is death; iniquity cannot prosper;
though hand join in hand, yet iniquity shall be brought to ruin.
Why, then, imagine that we find comfort in the softening of mere
terms, when a voice within us says : It is right that evil should
be punished, that wickedness should be condemned? What we
have to do is to attend to the substantial fact. We cannot escape
by etymology, or by grammatical construction, or by any critical
legerdemain. Written upon the face of the universe is this
tremendous fact, that no man can sin against God and live, no
man can be wicked and yet be justified in his wickedness; no
excuse can stand as against the accusation of God.
Here, then, is a psalm which is not at all limited by mere
88 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm ix.
personality, which sets forth a series of circumstances possible in
every age, and which presents a delineation of God which may
be retained amid all the ages as literally true, beautifully expres-
sive, tenderly ansvirering to every word and line of the portraiture
drawn by Jesus Christ himself. The psalm is poetry. That is
true; but poetry is the highest doctrine, the highest form of
reality. Poetry is fact on fire. We must be poetical in the
sense of wishing for terms larger than any we know, words more
elastic than any we can command, to express our Christian con-
sciousness of God's greatness, nearness, tenderness. What is
God to us ? Is he associated with marvels ? does his name
inspire awe ? is he everlasting, tender, open to pathetic appeals ?
does he distinguish between the righteous and the wicked ?
Then, indeed, have we the right conception of the Most High.
But let this never be forgotten concerning God : " If we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." How he
can do this we can never understand. How sin can be forgiven
transcends the imagination of man to conceive or explain. For-
giveness comes to us by revelation. We cannot forgive. We
cannot even forgive one another, except in some intermediate
and convenient sense, not in the metaphysical, spiritual, and
eternal sense ; simply because any offence that we may have to
forgive is either so trivial as to be but a social annoyance, or so
large that it transcends the personality of the parties and touches
eternal laws. How God can forgive is not a problem in philo-
sophy ; the mere metaphysician can never solve that mystery ,
the heart conscious of sin must receive it, act upon it, adopt it,
live and die in the faith of it. When the soul does this, seeing
Christ as the medium, of forgiveness and the cause of pardon,
opening up moral possibilities which the imagination had never
discovered, then is the Cross ineffably precious, then is that
saying true : " The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth
from all sin." Do not ask any man to explain the words ; they
must be lived ; they are bread eaten in secret, and they express
themselves in hope, confidence, joy, and service, rather than in
mere terms, which can balance controversies, or settle or silence
the debates of men#
Psalm z.
THE BOASTING OP THE WICKED.
WE have already pointed out that in the Septu^gint and
the Vulgate, Psahns ix. and x. are combined into one.*
This being the case, the authorship of the tenth psalm is clearly
traceable to David. It has further been pointed out that the
whole piece was originally alphabetical ; our immediate business,
however, is with the spiritual purport of the psalm itself.
The whole strain of the psalm is one of deep religious depres-
sion, and of lamentation over the condition of the poor and
helpless. The first verse is full of sacred pathos : —
" Why standest thou afar off, O Lord ? why hidest thou thyself in times
of trouble ? "
The conscious absence of God or even his conscious distance
from the soul is no unfamiliar experience. It is something to
know that the experience is of no modern origin, but that it seems
to attach to the entire course of the spiritual life. The mourning
which invests so many of the psalms with so deep a sadness
is literally expressive of our own religious tumult and despair.
Indeed, when we wish to give precise utterance to our deepest
and saddest feelings, we seem instinctively to turn to the Psalms
that we may find proper words. There is more religious instruc-
tion in this fact than would at first sight appear. It shows how
truly the religious life of mankind is one under all conditions of
time and space. There is the same God, the same alternating
faith and doubt, the same bright hope and sudden darkness.
We are thus united in our deepest experiences, however far we
may be separated by circumstances of an incidental kind. The
heart of man would seem to be most deeply one alike in trouble
and in prayer. Such trouble, too, has its own peculiar place in
spiritual education. It inspires the truest and noblest cry for
* See ante, p. 8o.
90 TBE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm x
the absent or distant God. But the particular idea of this verse
would seem to be not so much a loss of consciousness of spiritual
fellowship with God, as a deep and bitter feeling that the Lord
has separated himself practically from all the affairs of men.
The picture is of the strong oppressing the weak, and God,
instead of coming into the battle to avenge injustice and assist
helpless poverty, stands upon a distant hill that he may watch
the fight from afar. The contest awakens the pity of David and
yet does not seem to awaken the pity of God ! Has not a similar
experience occurred to ourselves? In innumerable instances
have we felt that if God himself would only come near he might
burn the wicked with a spark, and lift up the virtuous poor to
the elevation which is worthy of their spiritual pureness. But
affairs appear to go quite in another manner ; it is as if men
must fight out their own cause whilst the living God is a mere
observer looking on from a great distance, and indeed hardly
looking on at all. This last point indeed coincides with the
grammar of the verse, for the literal rendering, according to
Isaiah i. 15, would be, " Why hidest thou thine eyes in times of
trouble ? " In other words, Why dost thou wink at the wrong-
doing of oppressors ? Why not look straight at them with ej'es
of fire, and burn them as they madly pursue their infamous
course ? Whilst therefore it is profoundly true that there are
times when the soul is conscious of the absence of God in a purely
spiritual sense, it must not be overlooked that the writer of this
verse is rather complaining that God is taking no active part in
the battles and sorrows of mankind. The Psalmist asks — Why ?
It is a bitter question ; it is a question forced out of the soul by
distressing circumstances.
"The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken
in the devices that they have imagined. For the wicked boasteth of his
heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the Lord abhorreth "
(vers. 2, 3).
The grammar of these verses it is difficult to settle, but the
moral purpose of them is perfectly distinct. The wicked man
does not know the proper measure of his strength, his prosperity
makes him proud, and his pride fills him with contempt in refer-
ence to the poor. His reasoning is basely carnal : he would
say, Look at me and behold what my right hand has done, and
Psalm X.] THE BOASTING OF THE WICKED. 91
then look at the poor man in his vileness, and in that vileness
see a proof of his incapacity and worthlessness : his hand is
without skill, his eye is destitute of sagacity, and all his plans
are marked by the feeblest childishness : surely a man so vile
was made to be trampled upon, and in trampling upon him I
am but carrying out in a human way what God himself is
evidently doing in his mysterious providence. The speech of
the wicked man concerning the poor thus aggravates its wicked-
ness by a pretended piety. The wicked man would pretend to
see in the poor man's poverty a proof of God's contempt ; if the
man were not poor he would be more respected in heaven,
and because he is not respected in heaven it is evident to the
wicked observer that he was not intended to be respected upon
earth.
A very strong and vivid figure is that presented in the third
verse. The wicked are represented as speaking praise to the
lust of their own soul. When wicked people overwhelm the
poor, they arise and address to their own souls rhetorical con-
gratulations. They pour upon their own hearts eloquent tributes
to their genius and strength. The literal idea is that of a villain
addressing his vilest passions and congratulating them upon their
satisfaction and triumph. An illustrative instance is found in
the case of the rich man who told his soul that much goods had
been laid up for many years and that the time of holiday and
feasting had now come. The covetous man is represented in
the text as blessing himself, which is exactly the idea of the
parable of the rich man and his abundant harvests. The literal
translation of " covetous " in the third verse is " robber." This
is not only a grammatical change, it is a truly spiritual rendering.
When we speak plain language to ourselves we shall not disguise
the fact that covetousness is robbery. We speak now in modified
language of covetous men being "close," "thrifty," "prudent,"
"worldly-wise," but these softened expressions must be indig-
nantly driven away, and in their places there must stand the
word so terrible but true, that the covetous man is a thief and
a robber. The expression at the close of the third verse, " whom
the Lord abhorreth," should be inverted and read, "who
abhorreth the Lord." Many such expressions ought to be
92 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm x.
inverted, and thus many a difficulty in regard to the divine
nature would be removed. When we read of the Lord abhorring
a man we may set it down as an absolute certainty that the man
first abhorred the Lord. This true interpretation gets rid of the
unholy and debasing notion that the Lord conceives particular
prejudices against particular persons on grounds which are
purely arbitrary. Set it down as a guiding fact, as indeed a key
of interpretation, that wherever the Lord is said to be opposed
to a man or nation, the act of hostility began on the human
side. We can hardly determine whether the Psalmist is fixing
his mind upon some merely dramatic personalities whom he
describes by the name of wicked and covetous. What is the
result of our own observation in these matters ? Have the
wicked changed ? Are covetous men more softly and tenderly
inclined towards the poor ? Has the hand of the tyrant
relaxed ?
" The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after
God : God is not in all his thoughts. His ways are always grievous ; thy
judgments are far above out of his sight : as for all his enemies, he puffeth
at them. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved : for I shall never
be in adversity. His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud : under
his tongue is mischief and vanity. He sitteth in the lurking-places of the
villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are
privily set against the poor. He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den :
he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth
him into his net. He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may
fall by his strong ones. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten : he
hideth his face ; he will never see it " (vers. 4-1 1 ).
The expression, " pride of his countenance," literally refers to
the heightening of the nostril. This was a Hebrew form of
representing pride. Men were said to lift their heads high, to
turn up their noses at the poor, and to set hard faces against
the heavens. Wherever there is such self-confidence, truly
rehgious feeling is impossible, hence we read " God is not in
all his thoughts." The simple doctrine is, that either God or
selfishness must be the ruler of the human spirit : where there
is self-trust, there is no God ; where there is true reverence,
there is no self-trust.
But consider how strong are the temptations of the wicked
man to trust his own sagacity and skill ! See how many acres he
Psalm X.] THE BOASTING OF THE WICKED. 93
owns, how many people do obeisance to him, how many institu-
tions knock at his door and supplicate his patronage, how men
flee before him that he may have ample room on the highway,
and then consider how difficult it must be for such a man to
believe that he is merely mortal and that his breath is in his
nostrils. There is no God in all his thoughts. Why should
he trouble himself about God ? He has but to look upon his
gardens and they smile in flower ; he has but to put out his hand
even in the darkness and to take it back again filled with gold ;
he is not in trouble like other men, his eyes stand out with
fatness. He is a trouble to all who are pious in heart, yet whose
way is hedged up with hardness and difficulty. The idea of
the fifth verse is that the ways of the wicked man are always
successful. A corresponding expression is found in Job xx. 21 :
" Nothing escapes his covetousness, therefore his prosperity shall
not last." Whatever judgments he may honour in an abstract
way, he says they are practically " far above out of his sight,"
so that they have no relation to him and he need not concern
himself about them. They do not from his point of view
descend into his life and trouble him by their searching criticism :
the wicked man is prepared to give assent to theological pro-
positions, but he will not allow that the divine judgments are
the rule of daily discipline and conduct.
Having got rid of God it is easy for the wicked man to get rid
of his enemies. "As for his enemies, he puffeth at them," that is
to say, he treats them with scorn, so to say, with the most
scornful scorn ; he does not condescend to use words or argu-
ments, he simply snorts out his contempt against his impotent
foes. The wicked man has abounding confidence in his own
stability : " he hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved ; for
I shall never be in adversity," — more literally, " I shall never
be moved at any time, I who am without ill." His mouth is
filled with perjury. He sits in enclosed spaces and watches in
darkness that he may murder the innocent. He is represented
as secretly watching the poor. His eyes wait for the darkness.
The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight. To-day " the
Arab robber lurks like a wolf amongst sand-heaps, and often
springs out suddenly upon the solitary traveller, robs him in a
94 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm x.
trice, and then plunges again into the wilderness of sand-hills
and reedy downs where pursuit is fruitless."
This is the picture of the truly bad man. When will the poor
cease to trust in him ? It is folly to expect anything from the
clemency of a tiger ; it is madness to attempt to make rational
terms with a wolf. What then is the poor man to do ? In what
direction are his eyes to turn for light and help ? To this
enquiry the remainder of the psalm gives a subhme reply : —
"Arise, O Lord; O God, lift up thine hand: forget not the humble.
Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God ? he hath said in his heart, Thou
wilt not require it. Thou hast seen it ; for thou beholdest mischief and
spite, to requite it with thy hand : the poor committeth himself unto thee ;
thou art the helper of the fatherless. Break thou the arm of the wicked
and the evil man : seek out his wickedness till thou find none. The Lord
is king for ever and ever : the heathen are perished out of his land. Lord,
thou hast heard the desire of the humble : thou wilt prepare their heart,
thou wilt cause thine ear to hear : to judge the fatherless and the oppressed,
that the man of the earth may no more oppress" (vers. 12-1S).
Now God is called back again, as in the first verse he was felt
to be absent and careless. He is appealed to as if he had been
asleep, or had allowed the affairs of the world to glide far away
from him and plunge themselves into unrighteousness and all
moral confusion. But the very withdrawment of God is the
occasion of this heart-felt desire for him. We never know how
gladsome the summer is until we feel the biting cold of winter.
It is in the deep midnight that we are most vividly reminded of
the splendours of day. The Psalmist notes what cannot have
escaped our own observation, namely, with what terrific rapidity
the wicked man doubles his wickedness. Not only does the
wicked man deny God in some kind of paltry philosophical
way, from denial he proceeds to contempt, and from contempt
to defiance. Man cannot stop at the point of agnosticism. It
would appear to be impossible to be coldly irreligious any more
than to be coldly pious. There is a point of passion even in
irreligiousness ; a point at which a man takes his affairs into his
own hands, and having none other to trust to, he boasts of his
strength and offers sacrifices to his own ingenuity. Let it never
be supposed then that a man can rest at the point of merely not
knowing; the next point is denying; the next point is defying;
Psalm X.] THE BOASTING OF THE WICKED. 95
the next point is absolute self-idolatry. But out of all the dark-
ness which oppresses the soul of the Psalmist the sufferer comes
with a song of hope and exultation. Through some rift of the
angry cloud he has seen the king upon his throne, and has realised
that though a king he is yet identified with the cause of the
humble, he is the judge of the fatherless and the oppressed.
Thus the greater triumphs over the smaller. Oppression,
robbery, haughtiness, self-seeking had but a short day in which
to display their folly and rioting, and within the narrow limits of
that day they seemed to be triumphant and secure, but the time
came when a greater law asserted its sovereignty and swept
them away. The great lesson is that we are not to judge within
misleading limits or to pronounce final judgments whilst pro-
cesses are being developed. We are not to deny the force of
wickedness or the malignity of unclean hearts, nor are we to
deny the sorrows of the poor and the despair of the helpless, all
these things are to be recognised in the broadest possible way;
but to our immediate observation of these appalling realities we
are to add the religious faith that at the right time and in the
right way God himself will come and make the very boasting of
the wicked the deepest depth of his humiliation, and the very
grandeur of the robber shall be constituted into an element of his
disaster and shame.
Psalm xi.
[Note. — This psalm must be regarded as referring to the position of David
at the court of Saul when he was first put in peril by calumniators. It is
generally agreed that the psalm shows a master-hand. Whilst the timid
friends of David were filled with consternation, the Psalmist himself was
full of confidence and rapture.]
1. In the Lord put I my trust : how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to
your mountain ?
2. For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon
the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.
3. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do ?
4. The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven : his
eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men.
5. The Lord trieth the righteous : but the wicked and him that loveth
violence his soul hateth.
6. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an
horrible tempest : this shall be the portion of their cup.
7. For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness: his countenance doth
behold the upright,
DAVID'S GRAND CREED.
" In the Lord put I my trust : how say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to
your mountain ? " (ver. i.)
THIS is a psalm of David, and was evidently composed when
he was in extremest distress. Whether he was in trouble
under Saul or under the rebellion of Absalom does not immediately
appear, but whether the one or the other his soul was probably
never in deeper despair than at this moment. The utter help-
lessness in which his soul was plunged may be inferred, too, from
the advice which his friends had kindly, yet foolishly, tendered
to him. It would seem from the construction of the first verse
that the friends of David had advised him to flee as a bird to
the mountains, in other words, they had advised flight from
trouble, — the coward's cure for the distresses of life. The quality
of David's spirit is seen from the answer which he returned to
this mean counsel, Xt was absolutely intolerable to him, creating
Psalm xl.] DAVID'S GRAND CREED. 97
in him a sense of revulsion and utter disdain. There is only
one flight possible to the truly good man, and that is a flight
towards the Lord, his infinite deliverer. " The name of the
Lord is a strong tower : the righteous runneth into it, and is
safe." The suggestion made by the friends of David shows
their own irreligiousness, and shows indeed all that the world
has to offer to the soul when it is in its last extremity. A very
remarkable thing is this, namely, the exhaustion of the world's
proposals and remedies. The world offers one after another,
with mechanical regularity, and soon comes to the end of its
provision ; immediately on reaching the point of exhaustion the
world adopts the coward's creed, and preaches it with violent
weakness to the distressed soul, saying, Flee ye as a bird to her
mountain, — get out of the way ; run as far as you can ; seek
the darkness, and conceal yourself in impenetrable obscurity.
That is but another way of saying. Take refuge in death ; put
an end to all this trouble ; make your own quietus with a bare
bodkin, or otherwise; only have done with this trouble once
for all. The soul in its best moods must be left to say whether
there is any true reasoning in such proposals. Is the reasoning
based on sound principles ? has the reasoning in it any quality
of nobleness or courage ? does it not, then, cease to be reasoning
at all, and fall into the degradation of proved and undisputed
sophism and insanity ? It is when the soul is in these great
extremities that it must either invent a religion or rush upon
destruction. Happily in the case of the Christian there is no
need to invent any religious alleviation of trouble^ for that
alleviation is abundantly supplied by the promis.s of God, which
are exceedingly great and precious, never so great as when
greatly needed, and never so precious as when every other voice
is silenced and all the world confesses itself to be unable to
touch effectually the tremendous agony. It is beautiful to notice
how an assault of this kind is repelled by the very character of
David. " In the Lord put I my trust." That was the solidity
of his character. The people who pitied him, and who under-
took to advise him, did not know upon what his soul was built
as to its faith and expectation ; they imagined he was looking
out for whatever might occur to the vigilant mind as the best
means of dealing with a temporary trouble : they regarded him
VOL. XII. 7
98 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xi.
as open to intellectual suggestions and all kinds of experiments,
with a view to the bafQing of his enemies and the soothing of
his own pain. This was their profound mistake. Outwardly
David was troubled enough ; waves and billows were rushing
upon him in great storms, so rapidly that he had not time to
lift up his head and open his eyes upon the fair scene that was
above ; but inwardly there was a religious trust which made
him what he was — a secret, unfailing, abounding confidence in
the living God • • all this confidence seemed to the outward
observer to be eclipsed and indeed destroyed, but it was still
there, making Dayid's heart strong amidst all the temptation and
wrath which turned his life into daily suffering.
" For, lo, the wicked bend their bow, they make ready their arrow upon
the string, that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart " (ver. 2).
Here we discover not the policy of the unwise, but the policy
of the really wicked. That policy is marked by cruel cunning.
Wicked men hide themselves in darkness, that they may " shoot
at the upright in heart." These old pictures of the wicked man
are portraitures which must not be taken down from the gallery
of history. They are painted with a masterly hand. Fix the
mind upon the figure which is here so vividly presented; the
upright man is walking in the light, stumbling indeed, it may
be, and not without fear as to the way which he is taking, yet
his eyes are looking straight on, and in his heart there is a hope
that he is advancing towards the desired destiny : but in a secret
place the wicked man has hidden himself, and made ready his
arrow upon the string ; light is upon the good man, but the bad
man has hidden himself and is practically in darkness; from the
security of that darkness he delivers his arrow, hoping that he
may strike the heart of the good man. That is a delineation of
wickedness which is true in every line to-day. The wicked
man, by the very necessity of his wickedness, is a coward.
Men should make themselves familiar with the whole policy
which wickedness has always adopted, that by being informed
of its crooked ways they may be ashamed of it and abandon it
for ever. Wickedness cannot modify itself, or improve itself,
or make its moral quantity less; it may invent, or simulate, and
perform many a trick that may surprise the unwary and the
Psalm xi.] DAVID'S GRAND CREED. 99
innocent, but in the soul of it it is for ever bad, diabolical, and
humanly incurable. In another psalm we learn that wicked
men " shoot in secret at the perfect." They would seem to
have no friend but night, and to be unable to move but for the
cloud of great darkness. That they can do so much in the
darkness betrays the presence of a vision which is at once
unnatural and cruel. Let us, therefore, learn to hate wicked-
ness as an abominable thing, to have no sympathy with it, to
repel it at every point, — to hate it with infinite detestation.
"If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do ? The Lord
is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven : his eyes behold, his
eyelids try, the children of men " (vers. 3, 4).
Here is the expression of a mortal fear^ The idea occurred to
the mind of the Psalmist that the very foundations of law and
order might be destroyed. This is the most disastrous temptation
that can assail the human mind. Immediately following it are
all the consequences of a panic. So long as evils seem to be
open to the restraints of civilisation and the penalties of righteous
law, society retains a considerable sense of security, notwith-
standing occasional and even violent outrage. In this case,
however, the idea has occurred that the very foundations of
law, justice and equity might be ploughed up and utterly
destroyed. Then the question arises. What will the righteous
do ? where will the righteous be ? of what use will be
their presence upon earth when they have nothing to appeal to
either of the nature of reward or punishment ? All life that
is to be solid and lasting is really a question of " foundations."
Our inquiry should be into basis principles, original necessities,
the eternal fitness of things, the harmony that is based upon
the very nature of God. Our laws and institutions are only
valuable and are only assured in permanence in proportion as
they represent the spirit of the universe, which is a spirit of
order and light and steadfastness. Whatever errors there may
be in the superstructure of society there should be no doubt
about the solidity of the corner-stones upon which the build-
ing is set. On the other hand, it is of no consequence how
grand and even solid may be the superstructure itself if the
corner-stones are unequal to the weight, or are in any sense
100 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE, [Psalm xi.
faulty and unreliable. When the foundation gives way, the
superstructure, however noble, cannot maintain its own integrity.
The great necessity, therefore, of Christian civilisation is to
have a solid basis, to lay down principles which do not admit
of disputation, and to secure assent to laws which express
the spirit of eternal righteousness. Hence the work of
Christianity is profound, and being profound it is of necessity
somewhat slow in its progress, making no demonstration, but
quietly and almost secretly proceeding in its holy endeavours.
In this respect it stands in strong contrast to the men who are
fond of demonstration and of making such appeals to the eye
as are Hkely to secure popular interest and applause. The
programme of reformation is likely to be much more popular
than the programme of regeneration. Unquestionably there is
a disposition in the human mind to admire that which is lofty
yet measurable, and which in some subtle way reflects a
compliment upon its architect and builder. Many see the spire
who have never seen the foundation. Many can admire the
swelling dome who have no information whatever as to the
nature of the soil upon which the stupendous edifice is placed.
But if the foundation give way, who can keep the spire in its
place ? If the corner-stones shrink out of position, who can
maintain the dome ? It is the honour ot Christianity that it
alone is profoundly careful concerning the bases of society and
the bases of the individual life ; it insists upon the foundation
being divine, not human. God has laid in Zion a corner-stone
elect and precious. "Other foundation can no man lay than
that is laid." " The foundation of God standeth sure."
David's grand creed is repeated once more in the fourth
verse : —
" The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in heaven : his
eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men."
The Psalmist instinctively turns to the holy temple and fixes
his eye upon the enthroned Lord. We cannot but be struck by
the noble elevation of the thought, as well as by the religious
vigour of the language. The Lord himself claims all heaven as
his throne, and because the Lord is in his holy temple the prophet
demands that all the earth keep silence before him. This verse
Psalm xi.] DAVID'S GRAND CREED. loi
is indeed distinctively divided into two parts. In the first part
we have the utterance of rapture and religious confidence and
delight: tke Lord is far away, enthroned in a temple not made with
hands, enshrined in the very centre of the infinite heavens : the
picture is grand and overwhelming, but if it ended there it would
be of little use, except as a stimulus to religious veneration. The
second part of the verse, therefore, comes to our aid, and establishes
a direct connection between the majesty of God in heaven and his
relation to the children of men. Though high and lifted up and
seated upon a throne, yet God's " eyes behold," and " his eyelids
try," the men who are upon the earth. "The eyes of the Lord
are upon the righteous; and his ears are open to their cry." God
must never be put so far away that our prayers cannot reach him,
or his replies be lost in their infinite descent. Nor must God be
so far lifted up, even in imagination, as to cease from the work of
judging the creatures he has made. It should always be possible
for us to say, " Thou hast proved mine heart ; thou hast visited
me in the night ; thou hast tried me, — search me, O God, and
know my heart : try me, and know my thoughts : and see if there
be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
"The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth
violence his soul hateth. Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, fire and
brimstone, and an horrible tempest : this shall be the portion of their cup "
(vers. 5, 6).
We have already seen that the conduct of the wicked man is
marked by the meanest cruelty, now we see that the fate which
awaits him is adapted to his quality and to his whole character.
The wicked man has been using bow and arrow in secret,
now the Lord himself shall be, as it were, in secret, and from
his lofty concealment he shall not use bow and arrow upon
the wicked, but "he shall rain snares, fire and brimstone, and
an horrible tempest." Mark the similarity of the action and yet
the diversity of the instruments. If the wicked man can conceal
himself, so can God. Whilst, however, the wicked can only shoot
in one direction at a time, the Lord can make the whole heaven
contribute to the vastness and intensity of the storm which he
will pour down upon unholy spirits. This is no novel feature
in the Scriptures : — " The Lord rained upon Sodom and upon
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven." lu
102 7HE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xi.
the prophet Ezekiel we read that God will rain upon Gog, " and
upon his bands, and upon the many people that are with him,
an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire, and brimstone."
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God I The
wicked undoubtedly have their day, and they industriously employ
themselves in turning its hours to their own purpose ; yet it is
only a brief day : " the triumphing of the wicked is short ; "
whilst they are yet pursuing their unholy course the whole
heaven shall darken above their heads, the earth shall reel
beneath their feet, and the great wind shall be as a great fire,
scorching and burning and destroying them altogether. " In the
hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red ; it is full
of mixture ; and he poureth out of the same : but the dregs
thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and
drink them." However horrible the fate of the wicked, every
soul that has not lost its religious consciousness or its sense of
justice must own that such fate is well deserved. We are
allowed to separate the wicked man from wickedness, and instead
of desiring all thes^ storms to fall upon the wicked man as such,
we may pray that they may fall rather upon wickedness itself
and utterly consume it. Whilst, however, we are thus at liberty
to pray that the wickedness, rather than the wicked, may be
destroyed, let no wicked man take encouragement from this
view : it still stands as a literal truth that the wicked shall be
driven into hell with all the nations that forget God.
" For the righteous Lord loveth righteousness ; his countenance doth
behold the upright" (ver. 7).
This verse most fitly concludes the psalm. The Psalmist is
now himself in his best and happiest mood. He sees that the
righteous Lord loveth righteousness, and that being so he will
not forsake the righteous cause, but will bring it to fruition
and victory. Not only does the Lord's countenance behold the
upright, but the upright behold the countenance of the Lord.
Recognition and fellowship thus become identical terms. Good-
ness knows goodness wherever it sees it. Fellowship is not a
mechanical arrangement, but a natural expression of instinct,
sympathy, and trust. What the Lord loves must eventually be
supreme. Otherwise the Lord though omnipotent would be
Psalm xi.] DAVID'S GRAND CREED. 103
defeated, and though all-wise would be outwitted, and though
all-good would be put into a minority in his own universe.
Herein is the confidence of the soul that longs to be good, " The
Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup." "The
eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open
unto their prayers." " We then being in Christ are fellow-
labourers, to the end that wickedness may be destroyed." We
will not flee away like a bird of the mountains when the cloud
shuts out the sun and the storm roars across the whole earth
with destroying fury; we will say. All these things are but for
a moment; behind them there is a solid beneficent purpose;
they are but sent to try our faith and complete our patience.
Being based on the one foundation, we will continue to build,
however unfavourable the weather, however rough the wind,
however unlikely the instruments with which we have to work,
and however difficult it may be to obtain the right materials.
The one solid comfort we have is that the foundation is right,
and that if we persist in building upon it according to the best
of our opportunities, even though the fire may destroy our work,
we ourselves shall be saved. Nor will we ^nvy the lot of the
wicked. Now and again an arrow shot from his bow does indeed
smite the good man and make the upright momentarily afraid ;
but the Lord is still in his holy temple, the Lord's throne is in
heaven. We will wait on, prayerfully, patiently, hopefully.
The Lord hath not hidden from us his purpose to rain snares
fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest upon the wicked.
We know of a surety that this rain will fall, and that when it
falls there will be no escape from its all-devouring fire. My soul,
come not thou into the secret of that destiny ; be thy portion with
the righteous Lord who loveth righteousness, and be the chiefest
of thy delights to behold the countenance of the Lord.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, the appeal of the heart is always to thee in the dark day and
the starless night. Men find out God when they are in extremity, when
strength has failed, and wisdom has no further word to utter, and all life is
darkened and distressed. We bless thee for living faith in thy presence,
nearness, and willingness to save. This is our strength and our joy ; it has
become our song even in the night-time, so that now we have music at
home, and we have joy in the presence of danger. All things are under thy
control ; yet hast thou permitted the will of man to arrest thy purposes or
to delay their fulfilment : thou hast had patience even with evil ; thou hast
waited until the anger of little men subsided and the angry soul began to
pray. Thou hast not crushed thy way forward with the violence of almighti-
ness ; thou hast waited and wondered and complained and entreated ; thou
hast stood at the door and knocked, asking to be admitted. This is thy way.
It is the way of almightiness; it is because thou art almight}' that thou art
patient : with less of power thou wouldst have extended thine arm in
resentment and penalty ; because thou art the Infinite One thou art calm,
thou art patient, j'ea, thou art hopeful even of the unthankful and the evil.
Blessed be God for this revelation of himself in Christ Jesus. We know
that thou didst love the world; thou didst wait for it as thou wouldst wait
for one without whom thou wouldst lose companionship and joy. We bless
thee for thy patience, thy love, thy Cross, O God the Son, in which thou
didst display the ineffable tenderness of the divine heart as well as the
infinite patience of the divine will. Now and evermore be with us — a great
light and a tender benediction, an assurance of immediate and perfect help
in all time of danger and difficulty, and a perpetual peace, calming the tumult
of the soul, and bringing in a week-long Sabbath-day to reign over all our
activities and distresses, our hopes and fears. Gather us near thine heart ;
bind us with the cords of thy love; give our souls a time of feasting day by
day in thine own banqueting-house ; and may the strength we derive be
expended in self-sacrifice, in doing good, in heroic imitation of the dying,
rising, glorious Son of God. Amen.
Psalm xii.
1. Help, Lord ; for the godly man ceaseth ; for the faithful fail from among
the children of men.
2. They speak vanity ever\' one with his neighbour : with flattering lips
and with a double heart do they speak.
3. The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaketh
proud things :
Psalm xii.] THE IDEAL CHRISTIANITY. 105
4. Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail ; our lips are our own :
who is lord over us ?
5. For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I
arise, saith the Lord ; I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him.
5. The words of the Lord are pure words : as silver tried in a furnace of
earth, purified seven times.
7. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this
generation for ever.
8. The wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted.
"H
THE IDEAL CHRISTIANITY.
ELP, Lord " (ver. i). That may be a good prayer or a
to indicate the quality of the petition. Everything depends upon
the spiritual condition of the petitioner. A man may cry to God
for help with a very selfish heart, without any due recognition of
God's claim, God's nature, God's kingdom. The prayers of the
wicked are an abomination unto the Lord. There is no meaner
cry than "Help, Lord," unless it be inspired by a sense of
personal unworthiness and a profound and loving consciousness
of God's interest in good men and in good causes. A prayer
may be forced out of an atheist. It is not a prayer ; it is only
a variation of atheism. The reason given, however, explains in
some degree the scope and purpose of the cry : "for the godly man
ceaseth ; for the faithful fail from among the children of men."
We must not accept these words as true, simply because they
happen to be written here, or anywhere. It is perfectly possible
for us to take an unwise and incorrect view of social conditions.
David did not keep a register of all the "godly" and all the
"faithful." Another prophet said that he alone was left; the
Lord corrected his estimate, and said, No, not alone ; I have
seven thousand who have never kissed the lips of Baal. It is
unwise to take the opinion of dejectedness and forsakenness upon
any topic. When we are in extreme positions, either of joy or of
sadness, we are not qualified to pronounce broadly and correctly
upon the whole scope of divine providence. In high joy, the
glee that all but dances in the sanctuary for very ecstasy of
heart, we may think all men good, all causes excellent, all the
features of the times beautiful. In dejection, despondency,
io6 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xii.
orphanhood of heart, we may think we alone are left, and
that the gift of prayer will perish with our breath. All things
wear a sombre aspect ; the whole year is one long November ;
the very music of childhood is but an aggravation of our suffering.
That opinion must not be taken. Within the limits of the man's
own personality it is quite true, but no great generalisation must
be built upon it. David did not know how many godly men
there were in the world, or how many faithful ; but his experience
is valuable up to this point, namely, that he felt that everything
of the nature of trust, confidence, progress, depended upon the
presence of godly and faithful elements in the world. The world
was nothing to him but rottenness — an empty and mocking wind
— but for the godly and the faithful. That the population of the
globe had increased was nothing to David, if the godliness and
faithfulness of the community had gone down. We must inquire
into moral statistics, into spiritual arithmetic; we must make our
inquest into the social fabric an inquest of character, a scrutiny of
motive and purpose ; then we shall come to large and just con-
clusions. Woe betide us when, in looking abroad upon society,
we judge only by its palaces and temples and towers, its banks
and reservoirs of wealth, and do not look into spirit, disposition,
character, and all moral elements. The good men of society are
its rich men ; the faithful are its bankers, treasurers, trustees,
and securities. This is acknowledged even by persons who are
not formally connected with the Church. Even the drunkard
would like to entrust his business affairs to a sober man. Many
an atheist, were he called upon at last to say into whose charge
he would give his little children — whether to a disbeliever or
to a humble and tried Christian — might, with his dying breath,
vote for Christ. So men are not to be taken in their ecstatic
moments, or in their moments of dejection ; they are to be taken
at the middle point, the average line, the thoughtful moment ;
and then it is seen that godliness, faithfulness, are accounted the
pillars of society.
"They speak vanity every one with his neighbour: with flattering lips
and with a double heart do they speak" (ver. 2).
Here, again, we must ask whether David is speaking really, or
speaking, as it were, sensitively — allowing his own soreness of
Psalm xii.] THE IDEAL CHRISTIANITY. 107
heart and conscious destitution to rule his judgment and obliterate
features which he would otherwise be the first to discern and
appreciate. But the declension is possible. Men may "speak
vanity every one with his neighbour." Vanity is a shifting wind
— empty w^ords, compliments that come and go without carrying
with them any moral impress or any spiritual value. Men may
talk for talking's sake. They may mislead one another, the words
carrying with them no force of the heart or reasoned consent of
the understanding and the will. The saddest of all things is
described in this text in the words, "with a double heart do they
speak." A very apt expression in English ; it cannot be soundly
amended. The best comment upon this expression is to repeat
it until we become reverently familiar with it. What, is it
possible to have a double heart ? Did not one man ask in
sceptical wonder, and in a tone which involved denial, "Doth
a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter ? "
James put that possibility as an impossibility. He thought the
very utterance of the inquiry was its own answer. He expected
the question to be blown away with a contemptuous No. Yet
this is the very thing we see every day, and feel to be true
even in our own consciousness. Words are not straight lines ;
sentences are not clear as crystal ; speeches are not as honey
without wax, or porcelain without flaw. Charged with certain
meanings, the speaker can easily betake himself to some hidden
speech in his own sentence, some word that he had used in an
unfamiliar sense; he can change the punctuation and set the
thought in a new light ; he can play many a knavish trick with
language that ought to have only one clear meaning, the same
value the world over, in dark days and bright hours. It is in
this direction we must look for a great deal of Christian progress.
What about our speech ? Is every syllable like a dew-drop
trembling on the eyes of the morning ? Is every letter in every
syllable an equivalent for the thought it was intended to assist
in expression ? Is the tongue the utterer of the soul, or is
it bridled, partially gagged, somewhat distempered ? Is it the
servant of eloquence, or the bribed and hired slave of ambiguity
and insincerity ? It will avail us nothing that we speak
religiously if we do not feel the religion that we speak. Chris-
tianity can have nothing to do with double-heartedness. The
lo8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xii.
one object Christ has in view is to clean the heart, purify the
spirit, drive out every devil from the sanctuary of the life, and
make that sanctuary the temple of the living God. There are
many ways of lying. We need not wonder that invention has
found many symbols by which to express varieties of falsehood.
Men exclaim, "Black lie!" Sometimes they say, not without
a meaning smile, " That is a white lie." Then, again, we hear
of " great lie," " flat lie," " wicked lie " — as if a lie could be other
than a lie ! Falsehood must not be allowed one rag with which
to cover itself. Any covering of falsehood is an aggravation of
the iniquity. The word " lie " must go without adjective or
qualifying word of any kind. To palliate a lie is to repeat the lie,
or give licence to the false speaker, to stimulate him to invent
new forms of deception, and to give prizes for ambiguity.
David, then, traces somewhat of the cause of this vain speak-
ing when he says there are people
"who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; our lips are our
own: who is lord over us?" (ver. 4).
That is the beginning of the iniquity. When we mistake our
proprietorship we cease to be religious, and we give up the
possibility of being religious. What is the first lesson in true
Christian religion ? The first lesson is that we are not our own,
have no right, title, or claim to ourselves ; we are branded : we
have the burnt-in mark upon us that we belong to Christ Jesus,
that we are blood-bought, that we are not our own ; we have
not a moment 01 time, not a single energy, thought, wish, will,
desire that is our own. That is the ideal Christianity, the very
purpose and consummation of Christ's priesthood, the true mean-
ing— that is, the large and complete meaning — of self-denial,
saying No when anything within us claims to have an existence
or a right of its own. But this cannot be taught in lectures, nor
can men receive it through the medium of preaching ; this is the
last lesson as well as the first doctrine which is to be learned
in the school of Christ. Other men have endeavoured to preach
it without the inspiration of Christ and without the essentials
of the Christian religion ; they have become merely sectarian
preachers or provincial reformers. We can only learn what it
is to have no right in ourselves, not after we have been to
Psalm xii.] THE IDEAL CHRISTIANITY. 109
church, but after we have been nailed to the Cross of Christ in
the very presence and companionship of Christ. Who can attain
this wisdom ? Who will not say before attaining it, " My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " Who does not know
that before obtaining this there are Gethsemane days, sweltering
of blood, sense of loneliness, and, at the last, crashing temples
and opening tombs, and a whole apocalypse of wonder and
transformation ? So long as we think that our lips are our own
we shall speak what we please ; when we begin to learn that our
lips are not our own, nor our hands, nor feet, nor head, nor
heart, we shall have but one question : " Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do ? Tell me, and give me strength to do it." That
will be the day of jubilee, the morning of coronation.
Now David betakes himself to a great principle ; in the fifth
verse he says : —
" For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will
I arise, saith the Lord ; I will set him in safety from him that puflfeth at
him."
There may be no more selfish words than these ; they may in
reality mean just the contrary of what they seem to say. When
David makes himself the " poor " man and the " needy " man,
and then says God will arise for such, he may be degrading the
very doctrine he seeks to magnify. Who does not think that
when he goes out to war the Lord is sure to be upon his side
in the battle ? Who ever suspects that his poverty and need
have been brought upon himself by himself, and that the Lord
is no wise responsible for them ? The doctrine is true, but the
question arises, Who are the poor and who are the needy?
That God will arise for them, there can be no doubt ; but we
must not unduly make ourselves into the poor and needy that
we may take occasion of religious rejoicing that God will make
favourites of us. Only let us be true and sincere in the inquiry.
If we are poor and needy in the right sense, then all heaven is
upon our side; if we have made ourselves poor and needy, or
have suspected society of some injustice to us, simply that we
may magnify our importance, we have mistaken the doctrine and
misapply it. Who dare now preach, that the Lord is on the
side of the poor and the needy ? "^(Ve shoultj need many
no THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE, [Psalm xii.
qualifying terms in order to come to a right understanding about
poverty and need ; but there is a sense, profoundly and awfully
solemn, in which the Lord is against the rich and for the poor.-
Do not hastily interpret that sentence, or put narrow and un-
worthy meanings upon it; and let no man consider his poverty a
religion or his necessity a proof of his orthodoxy. We must
discriminate the terms, weigh them in the balances of the
sanctuary, put them in their right places and relations, and then
take all the comfort God offers us. Society is its own god in too
many instances. Parliaments imagine they can construct society,
whereas society cannot be constructed, using that term in its
widest and most solemn sense, except by him whose glory is
shown by the heavens and whose handiwork is displayed in the
firmament. We cannot make ourselves individually, nor can we
make ourselves socially. Society is God's idea, God's structure ;
he putteth every one in his place ; the whole gradation is settled
by Infinite Wisdom. What have we done ? We have meddled
with God ; we have changed the relation and the colour of things ;
we have coined words for our own use ; we have made invest-
ments of each other ; we have thought that he was the acutest and
altogether worthiest man who could rise before his fellow, run
before him, outwit him, tell him one thing and mean another,
send him in the wrong direction, and then laugh at him when he
returns at eventide disappointed and sore at heart. We can
have no peace, and we can have no progress, until we ask
Almighty God to reconstruct society, to pity us and forgive us for
attempting to make society, when it was no more the business of
ours to do it than to call up the sun or settle the bounds of the
horizon. Whatever we can do in this matter is but co-operative ;
we are fellow-workers with God. He must build the social
house. When he builds it, what a wondrous difference shall
we see on all the face of the globe ! — no menial or undeserved
poverty ; no arbitrary and penal restrictions, no necessary
ignorance of the very first principles of life and the very first
duties of existence ; no promotion on account of privileges and
honours with which the individual man himself had nothing
to do ; but a grand recognition of the value of man as man, —
a Christian rule, a sublime theocracy ; only one throne, and on
jt the Son of man.
Psalm xii.] THE IDEAL CHRISTIANITY. in
What wonder if David compares the words of the Lord with
the words he has been condemning?
"The words of the Lord are pure words: as silver tried in a furna."^
of earth, purified seven times" (ver. 6).
We never know what the Bible is until we have been reading
the newspaper. We cannot tell what Holy Scripture is until we
have heard the lies of society. Never is the sanctuary so precious
as when we leave the halls in which we supposed to see gaiety
and joy, and the last phase of wisdom. Oh, 'tis rottenness ! 'tis
painted falsehood ! 'tis vanity ! We may dwell in the house of
the Lord so long that it may become somewhat monotonous and
wearisome to us, and the heart — always playing tricks with
itself — may long to be elsewhere, to see the world, and watch its
ways, and hear its music. Never is God's Book so dear to a man
as when he has been listening to other voices that appeal to him'
We have never heard its music as we have heard it after voices
of tempters and liars have been uttering their falsehoods in our
ears. The house of God will stand when all things fail. God's
Book will be the last to go. We may neglect it, undervalue it,
bring our own books into competition with it, and for a time the
old Book may seem to be imperilled ; but its day will come, and
the great heart of man will say : After all, there is none like it ;
it touches every point ; it is the same at night as at day ; when
it comes winter goes ; when it speaks, the heart listens with all
attentiveness ; it is most when we need it most ; what tragedy
in its history ! what sublimity in its poetry ! what mastery of
time in its prophecies ! what tenderest pity, love, sympathy in
its gospels 1 what eternity in its Cross ! Oh, Word of the Lord,
thy day is an eternal time 1
PRAYER.
Almighty God, tender in mercy, thou hast kept back nothing from us that
is good for us to know ; the mysteries which thou hast hidden are better
concealed than displayed. We have learned to trust thee. It is better as
thou wilt, not as we will ; we are impatient because we are weak, we are
urgent because of our ignorance. A thousand years are in thy sight as
yesterday, or as a watch in the night : to us how great is the period ; how
we are filled with wonder when we think of it, how we are overwhelmed
when we attempt to seize the idea of time in all its vastness and sublimity !
To thee there is nothing sublime but a broken heart, eyes filled with tears,
and thy penitent ones crying for mercy at the foot of the Cross. This is thy
sublimity. Thou lovest meekness, pureness, childlikeness, simplicity ; thou
lovest all the little flowers ; thou takest up into thine heart all little helpless
children. Rebuke our vanity, and turn our conceit to confusion, and show
us that our strength is but a dying vapour, and that when we are weak we
are truly strong, when we cling most to the Cross we are most beautiful
in our Father's sight. "When the road is all uphill thou wilt not drive us
quickly, thou wilt allow us to go at our own pace, according to our failing
strength, yea thou hast provided on the road resting places, beautiful nooks,
chambers in the rock ; if we sit there and look behold the landscape is a
landscape all summer, and the ascending brightening heaven is a glimpse of
eternal glory. Help us to believe thee, to trust thee, to lean upon thee, yea
to commit ourselves unto thee, to throw ourselves broadly and wholly with-
out reluctance or reserve upon the omnipotence and the grace of God. Pity
us wherein we have sinned ; we are conscious of our guilt ; against thee,
thee only have we sinned ; still thy mercy endureth for ever ; may we
forget the past and avoid all its evil, and be new and true and upright and
noble souls in the future. To this end grant unto us the baptism, daily and
continual, the baptism of the Holy Ghost ; not of dew, not of water, but of
purifying, testing fire ; and at the end may it be found that the basket of
summer fruit which our life presents is fruit acceptable unto God, because
grown upon branches that live in the one Vine. Amen.
Psalm xiii.
1. How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord ? for ever ? how long wilt thou
hide thy face from me ?
2. How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart
daily ? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me ?
3. Consider and hear me, O Lord my God : lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep
the sleep of death ;
Psalm xiii.] THE JOY OF TRUST. I13
4. Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him ; and those that
trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
5. But I have trusted in thy mercy; ray heart shall rejoice in thy
salvation.
6. I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with
me.
THE JOY OF TRUST.
"How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord ? for ever? how long wilt thou
hide thy face from me " (ver. i).
THIS psalm begins with winter and ends with summer. It
is most noteworthy, as we have already seen, how the
Psalmist often sings himself out of his trouble. The hymn
begins in a low mufQed tone expr»ssive of sorrow, almost hope-
less, and gradually the tone heightens until the closing verse
becomes a burst of rapture and thankfulness. Surely it is well
even for loneliest sorrow to try at least to sing. It is surely not
unnatural for sorrow to create a kind of music all its own. It is
pathetic also to observe how all musical notes will lend them-
selves to the expression of grief as well as to the expression of
joy and victory. Our souls translate themselves into the music
which they employ. The Psalmist is afraid that he will be
forgotten for ever. It is right to express our momentary ex-
periences as if they were the permanent facts of our life. Nowhere
are we forbidden to utter our sorrows, or even oilr despair.
The spirit of the Bible would rather seem to say to us, Speak out
all that is in your hearts' ; keep back nothing ; if you are weary
and heavy-laden, say so in the most expressive terms, and if all
the colour has been taken out of your sky, tell God exactly how
dark the firmament is, and spare nothing in your description of
the darkness and storm which make your soul afraid. God will
thus encourage frankness both on the one side and on the other ;
that is to say, a frankness of sorrow, and a frankness of joy. It
is often thought to be right only to express our happier feelings;
but the Bible would seem to say that all other feelings are also
to be expressed, that in the very expression of them a sense of
healing and restoration may, as it were, steal into the soul. The
Psalmist here appears to complain of neglect or forgetful ness.
This discloses an aspect of the divine government which is not
often sufficiently studied. We are prone enough to speak of
VOL. XII. 8
»I4 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xiii.
God contending against us, opposing us, trying us by privations
or by sufferings of actual pain ; but in this case the Psalmist
complains of neglect. Who can bear to be neglected where love
is desired ? Neglect is cold ; neglect hurts by its very passive-
ness. It is even possible that the soul might prefer obstinate
controversy to cold neglect. There is hope of opposition that it
may be turned into sympathy, but who can expect to make any-
thing of neglect or forgetfulness ? It is like fighting with death ;
it is like endeavouring to charm the grave into sympathy.
Terrible is the feeling of the soul as it begins to realise that it
is no longer counted amongst the number of God's elect ; it is
simply left out in the cold and darkness of the star-forsaken
night, without home, without friend, without hope. What child
could bear to think that all the household had retired to rest, and
had actually forgotten his existence and left him beyond the
household walls ? The very fact that such neglect was possible
would be an element in the distress which would embitter and
discourage the soul.
" How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart
daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me ?" (ver. 2).
The literal rendering of this verse brings before us the folly
of mere plan-making. David is taking counsel in his own soul ;
inventing plans of self-deliverance ; making up schemes of daily
life and programmes of service and progress. He no sooner
makes one plan than it is displaced by another. His schemes
follow in quick succession, but the second always amicnds the
first, and both give way to the third, and he finds that in much
scheming is much disappointment ; it brings sorrow into his
heart daily. By day he is mocked by harassing thoughts : by
night he reverses all his day-plans in dreams, and in the morning
he awakes to forget both day and night in some new vision of
possible self-deliverance. Thus the mind left to itself is self-
tormented ; being limited in range, it is continually checking its
own conclusions and hesitating as to its own purposes. How
true it is — " without me ye can do nothing." This is what Jesus
Christ said to his disciples, and we feel it to be true in our own
souls when we endeavour to invent plans for ourselves, and to
make our will into a kind of divinity. It is curious to observe,
Psalm xiii.] THE JOY OF TRUST, 1 15
too, how the Psalmist continually mixes up the right view and the
wrong one, and how he is certain to fall into the wrong view the
moment he turns away his complete attention from the living
God. In this verse, for example, he occupies the wrong stand-
point when he is wondering how long his enemy is to be exalted
over him. When a man is truly living in God, he has no time
to think about his enemy, nor any disposition to consider what
that enemy will do. God occupies the whole soul . with equal
vividness at every point, and dominates in gracious sovereignty
over every beating pulse and living thought. When a man looks
at his enemy he may well be discouraged, because the enemy
may be strong, rich, vigilant, stubborn, and altogether beyond
his strength and resources : but when he looks at God, his enemy
fades away into insignificance and invisibleness, and is therefore
no longer an energetic factor in his calculations and outlook. It
is no doubt painful that such a man as Doeg or Gush should be
exalted over such a man as David ; but the very fact that David
is the man that he is should enable him to despise every enemy,
knowing that God is not on their side because of their unrighteous-
ness and self- idolatry. It is very much in our own hands
whether we shall be troubled by our enemies or not. We may
make them great by thinking much about them ; or we may
throw their power into distressing disproportion by omitting
to bring into view the pledged co-operation and deliverance
of God.
" Consider and hear me, O Lord my God ; lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep
the sleep of death " (ver. 3).
It has been considered by some of the most sober commentators
that in this verse there is an indistinct reference to the possibility
of suicide. David is afraid lest he should sleep the sleep of
death. The temptation was very strong that he should put an
end to all his troubles and sorrows by his own hand. Through-
out the whole Testament there is a continual and all but inexplic-
able fear of death : " for in death there is no remembrance of
thee : in the grave who shall give thee thanks ? " Sheol, or the
grave, represented an infinite area, occupied by dead and forgotten
men : it was the sphere of darkness and blind night : it was the
region of silence : there was nothing about it of the nature of
Ii6 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xiii
light, or hope, or expectation. The Hebrew mind turned away
from it with shuddering and horror not to be expressed. Yet in
this very verse there seems to be what may be termed at least
a negative hope of immortality. It is as if the Psalmist made a
distinction between one kind of sleep and another, namely, the
sleep that might awake again, and the sleep of death. Man
seems always to have been groping after immortality. His
fear of death must be distinguished from a fear of mere pain,
and in so far as it is a fear of death it is at least a negative
argument in support of the doctrine of immortality. Why
shrink from death ? If it is the accepted end of all things, why
not rather covet it, as the weary man might desire the rest of
sleep ? What is there to be afraid of in death, if it be the
extinction of every faculty and every sensibility ? To all these
great questionings about death and the future we must bring
the answer of Christ: "Jesus Christ hath brought hght and
immortality to light through the gospel." By the power of
Christ men are now enabled to say, " O death, where is thy
sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? " Account for these as
we may, it is at least a pleasing completion of a wonderful
process of intellectual development. This is a capital worthy
of the historical pillar on which it is placed. The consummation
is worthy of the process which has led up to it. We must con-
trast the expressions of Paul with those of David in order to see
the superiority of Christianity over every preceding form of
religion. Paul is not afraid of death : he has a desire to depart,
and to be with Christ; when he has finished his course, he looks
forward to the crown of righteousness ; when he is assured that
this tabernacle will be dissolved, he rather rejoices in the disso-
lution, because he has a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens. It is impossible to conceive the biblical process of
evolution to be inverted. We should have shrunk from a book
which began with a revelation of man's immortality and ended
with the gloomy doctrine of annihilation ; even where we could
not put our argument into words, we should feel that such a
process was an anti-climax, an irony of events neither to be
credited nor tolerated. Account for it as we may, the biblical
line is one of continual ascension and illumination ; we go
forward from Adam to Christ feeling that we are travelling on
Psalm xiii.] THE JOY OF TRUST. 117
a broad, sunny, and upward road ; to have gone from Christ to
Adam would have created in the mind a wholly contrary and
insupportable feeling. To know what Christ has done for the
human race we must compare the experiences of the most mature
of the Old Testament saints with the experience of the immediate
apostles and followers of the Cross. The very tone of triumph
in the voice of the latter shows what wonders have been wrought
by the indwelling Spirit of God. This holy hope must never be
surrendered. It is the light of morning ; it is the crown of
noonday ; it is the star of night.
"Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that
trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in thy mercy ; my
heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord, because he
hath dealt bountifully with me " (vers. 4-6).
The Psalmist once more turns to his enemy, and therefore
once more shows his littleness. But in this case the turning is
only for a moment : for a new and happy inspiration seizes the
spirit of David. Now dawns the summer. David thinks of
mercy and salvation and the bountiful dealing of Providence.
A remarkable succession of terms is employed, suggestive of
argumentative completion and force : David " trusted," " rejoiced,"
and then "sang" — "I have trusted," "my heart shall rejoice,"
" I will sing." This is a process of education. It is wonderful
how all these great processes square themselves with what may
be called the natural logic of feeling. David does not begin with
a song, but with holy trust. The moment the trust is established,
joy begins to glow in the heart ; as when a man has built himself
a house, strong in the foundations and strong in the super-
structure, he begins to feel the spirit of home making his heart
glad and his life secure. Joy coming after trust, what can come
after joy but song — the loud and happy expression of new and
sacred gladness ? The voice must take part in the holy satis-
faction. The judgment trusts, the heart rejoices, the voice sings ;
thus the whole man is engaged in a noble religious service.
The hymn that is not the expression of joy will die away in mere
sound, and the joy that is not fortified by trust will flicker and
expire. Here, then, we find a standard of judgment and criticism
which each one may apply to his own religious experience.
What is our trust ? Is it in God's mercy ? What is our joy ?
ii8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xiii.
Is it in God's salvation ? Why do we sing : is it because of
the bountifulness of God's providence ? Here again we must not
overlook the fact that every feeling indicated by the Psalmist is
supported by a distinct reason. The mercy accounts for the
trust, the salvation accounts for the joy, the bountifulness
accounts for the song. All these three reasons are in full force
to-day ; and because the reasons continue in their operation the
trust, the joy, and the song should neither be diminished nor
restrained. It is in this sense that we need a professing
church, a church of testimony, a great band of living witnesses,
men who are not afraid to say that they have seen God's mercy,
accepted God's salvation, and realised God's bounty. Pro-
fession should thus be the expression of gratitude. Christian
profession should be built upon these three strong founda-
tions, and then may express itself in noble dome, in lofty
spire, and in every form which can attract the attention and
satisfy the just expectations of mankind. O heart of man, take
courage again ! This thirteenth psalm may be a repetition of
thy deepest experiences. At the opening the experiences may
be full of sadness and grief and trouble, a sense of neglect not
to be tolerated by the sensitive soul, and yet the process may
develop, bringing with it light upon light, and pleasure upon
pleasure, until at last there shall be a sabbath of peace, a
jubilee of music, and expectation so high and glad as to bring the
soul almost within the very precincts of heaven. My soul, wait
thou upon God, and let thine expectation be continually from
him ; a light shall arise upon thee in darkness, and thy mourning
shall be turned into joy. We must not be afraid of enthusiasm.
If we were to hold our tongues under some circumstances of
peculiar revelation and deliverance, the very stones would cry
out ; seeing that God must be praised and will be praised, those
whom he has made in his own image and likeness should lead
the song and be loudest in its utterance.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, do thou preserve us, continue thy goodness unto us, and
give us the sweet sense of the nearness of thine hand and the sureness of its
defence; then our soul shall grow in quietness, and the end of the experi-
ence shall be abundant fruitfulness : thou shalt be pleased when thou dost
come to look upon thy vines. We bless thee for all thy care in the past ;
the recollection of it renders doubt in the future impossible. Thou hast
written thy record in our lives — a record of tender love, pitiful compassion,
ever-patient forbearance; and what thou hast been thou surely wilt be, if so
be our desires go out after thee in loving wonder, seeking thee because none
other can fill the void which they express. Thou art round about us ; thou
dost beset us behind and before, and lay thine hand upon us; yea, thou
knowest our thoughts, our words, our whole nature : this is our delight, yet
this is our terror : thou understandest wherein our integrity is good, sound,
without breach or flaw, and thou also dost penetrate into the quality of our
motive, its origin, its unexpressed intent ; yea, thy word is sharper than a
two-edged sword — it pierces, it divides, it spares not. The Lord help us in
the day of trial, and be with us in the hour of judgment, and be gracious to
us because of our weakness and because of the fewness of our days. We
are of yesterday, and know nothing; we have had no time to know: the
days have not only been few, but short, and our head has been troubled, and
our heart has been distressed, and our eyes have not been able to look
clearly. But all these things thou knowest, and thy judgment will be in-
spired by graciousness, and thy forbearance will be our trust in the day of
criticism. We have done the things we ought not to have done, and we
have left undone the things that we ought to have done ; knowing this, we
are without excuse; we will not plead with thee upon this side of our life,
but cast ourselves lovingly, humbly, entirely upon thy care and pity and
love : we look to thy tears, and not to thy righteousness, when we await the
answer of heaven. We await that answer at the Cross. We cannot receive
it otherwhere; it would be an answer of lightning and thunder and terrible
judgment, — yea, the outpouring of many vials of wrath ; but whilst we
linger at the Cross and look upon the Crucified, and our hearts go out in
inefi"able desire towards the Priest of humanity, thine answer will be
gracious, thy love will come down upon us, thy still small voice will an-
aounce thy pardon to our hearts. Amen.
Fsalm xiv.
I. The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt,
they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
120 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xiv.
2. The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children oi men, to see
if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
3. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy : there is
none that doeth good, no, not one.
4. Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my
people as they eat bread, and call not upon the Lord.
5. There were they in great fear : for God is in the generation of the
righteous.
6. Ye have shamed the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge.
7. Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! when the
Lord bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel
shall be glad.
WITHERED HEARTS.
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God" (ver. l).
THE word " fool " has been traced to a term which signifies
the act of withering. The sense would be represented by
the expression — the withered heart hath said there is no God.
Though in the Scriptures the term " heart " is often employed
as signifying the mind or judgment, yet in this case, judging by
the consequences which are detailed, the reference is evidently
to the moral nature. A distinction is indeed made in the Old
Testament between " mind " and " heart " ; as in the instance of
the first and greatest commandment. The point to be observed
then is that the " heart " or moral nature has in this instance
" withered " ; affection is blighted, moral instinct is perverted,
the natural and noblest aspirations of life are utterly extinct. A
difference is to be marked between a purely intellectual scepticism
and a corrupt moral aversion. There are speculative agnostics,
whose outward life may be unquestionable as to honour and
faithfulness ; but there are also deniers of the existence of God
whose object is to get rid of responsibility and judgment. Every
man will know for himself whether he belongs to the one class
or to the other. Christian observers should carefully note the
existence of the two classes, and never lose influence by con-
founding them. To charge a speculative agnostic with immorality
is to destroy every possible line of approach to his attention and
confidence, and to regard a corrupt and godless man simply as
an intellectual unbeliever is to aggravate his wickedness through
the medium of his vanity. It is not transgressing the line of fact
and observation to say that it is the " heart " which first and most
truly believes in God. Where the " heart " or moral purpose is
Psalm xiv.] WiTHEkED HEARTS. 12 1
simple and constant, intellectual aberrations will certainly be
rectified or rendered spiritually harmless. Everything of a reli-
gious nature depends upon the purpose and faithfulness of the
moral nature. The heart feels after God. The heart is first
conscious of the divine absence. The heart soon becomes a
medium of accusation through which the whole nature is assailed
with just and destructive reproach.
The idea of " God " having been given up by the heart,
certain practical consequences are inevitable.
"They are cormpt, they have done abominable works, there is none
that doeth good" (ver. i).
These are the consequences to which we have referred as
shewing that it was the moral nature and not only the intellectual
that had been perverted. A criminal life is the necessary coun-
terpart of an absurd creed. Here again it must be noticed that
the absurdity is distinctively moral. A creed may be intellec-
tually absurd, and j'^et the moral purpose may overrule the mental,
peculiarity ; but again and again it must be observed that where
the heart has been withered the life falls into decay, putridity,
and noisomeness. From this point the reasoning may be carried
backwards, and in that case the reasoner would assert that because
the men are corrupt and their works abominable, therefore the
heart is withered. " By their fruits ye shall know them." We
need not enquire what a man " says " when we have an oppor-
tunity of observing what he does. A man who says there is
a God and yet whose ways are corrupt is to be regarded as a
hypocrite : a man whose ways are honourable, unimpeachable,
and benevolent, may really be under the influence of the Spirit
of God when he occupies a heterodox intellectual standpoint.
Not they who say, " Lord, Lord," are good, but they who do that
which is right in the sight of Heaven. This rule ot judgment
will often save the cause of charity from cruel perversion. A
narrow and sectarian orthodoxy will determine everything by
what is said or written ; but the true judgment will look to the
life, study the spirit, and often find how true it is that a man
may be better than his creed.
The psalm now enters upon a new phase by presenting a
graphic image of the Lord, looking down as from a window in
122 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xiv,
heaven to observe the children of men. Note that the divine
observer is not looking upon particular districts, or upon
particular sections of the human family ; it is a " look " upon
the entire human race, — " the children of men." Thus even in
the Old Testament we catch glimpses of the universal Father-
hood, and the purpose of God to include all men in a common
redemption. The look was not only universal, it was religious.
The Lord did not look down to see who were learned, rich,
influential, prosperous : the one object of the divine observation
was to see if " there were any that did understand and seek God."
With reverence it might be said, this is all the Lord is really
concerned about. Nor is this concern exclusive ; it is in reality,
and in the profoundest sense, inclusive. Evidently so, because
it is an impossibility to have an intelligent and reverent interest
in divine things without shewing vital solicitude about all affairs
of consequence to beings made in the image and likeness of God.
Beautiful is the expression — " Seek God." It opens up the way
to many glorious possibilities ; it was enough as a beginning
that the face should be turned in the right direction, though the
speed of movement was slow, and the intellectual vision was
dim. It is possible to conceive of a true God looking with almost
complacent pity upon men in the lowest state of idolatry. God
knows the meaning of every wistful look towards even an idol
made with hands, and it is not in his heart to hold in contempt
the eyes that are opening upon great spiritual distances and
new spiritual hopes. Where the idolater is content with his
idolatry and never allows it to interfere with his depravity,
God can look but with detestation and anger. Where any man
is honestly and reverently seeking God, and sustaining his whole
conduct by the spirit of that elevated quest, God is full of
compassion and lovingkindness towards him, as a parent might
pity and love an infant who has not yet awakened to self-
realisation, or become possessed of the power of expressing his
necessity and desire.
The judgment that is pronounced as the result of this observa-
tion is profoundly solemn :
'They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is
none that doeth good, no, not one " (ver. 3).
Psalm xiv.] WITHERED HEARTS. 123
This judgment is wrought out in detail in the subsequent
verses. The mind and heart having gone astray — having been
turned astray like a deceitful bow — nothing became easier than
to sink into ever-deepening abysses of iniquity : the case is put
also negatively so as to fill up the measure of the great accusa-
tion : " there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Man cannot
stop in a morally negative condition. Again and again this
solemn lesson has been forced upon us by the whole current
of history, and yet an insidious temptation assails the heart with
the thought that it is still possible to forsake religious convictions
and professions, and yet to preserve a pure and noble life. A
distinction must be drawn here between those who have known
God and departed from him, and those who have never known
him experimentally and have been intellectually inquiring for him.
The backslider and the truth-seeker must never be regarded as
one and the same person. God having been surrendered as
the supreme thought of the mind and the supreme rule of
conduct, a scene of infinite confusion presented itself: workers
of iniquity carried on their evil service as ii in darkness ; their
mouths were opened in cruelty upon any who feared and
worshipped God ; the counsel of the poor was treated with con-
tempt, and the poor themselves were devoured rapaciously.
What is this but saying what we ourselves have known to be
the case, that where reverence has been abandoned it has been
impossible to sustain true and self-sacrificing philanthropy?
Observe again that the case is one in which reverence has been
formally given up, and so a great act of moral spoliation has
been accomplished ; it is not the case of one who is diligently
studying the universe or perusing human history with a view
of discovering the throne of power or the centre of energy. Such
a man may have actually begun his religion at the point of
assisting human necessity. Such assistance may be the initial
form of " seeking God."
The psalm ends with a pious aspiration :
' Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion ! When the Lord
bringeth back the captivity of his people, Jacob shall rejoice, and Israel
shall be glad " (ver. 7).
Sometimes amid the weltering confusions of life the good
124 TH^ PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xiv.
man's only resource is in the utterance of pious desires. ] He
feels that the time of argument has passed, and that even the
most poignant reproaches are thrown away when there is no
responsive feeling on the part of those to whom they are
addressed, and it would almost seem as if punishment itself had
lost its power to turn men to religious considerateness : under
these circumstances the good man can but turn his face towards
heaven and pray for the dawn of the better time. He sees
plainly that men will never convert themselves : they have no
power to climb out of the abysses into which they have plunged :
even if they had the desire they are lacking in the ability,
inasmuch as they have disabled themselves from coping success-
fully with the very laws which they have impiously defied :
their hearts are withered, their will is paralysed, their very
conscience is depraved ; moral distinctions are blurred in most
horrible confusion, and if so holy a thing as a prayer could for
a moment escape their lips it would but add to the agony which
it cannot alleviate. What then is to be done? The Lord
himself must take the case into his own hands. He must arise
out of Zion and work out the mystery of salvation. That he
has had no encouragement, so to say, to do this, is the blackest
fact in human life. His Spirit has been resisted, his mercies
have been trampled under foot, his very existence has been
disputed and even denied, and men have turned away from his
throne to work all manner of evil with both hands. But the
answer is still in God. Recovery must appear in the form ot
a miracle which it is impossible for reason to understand. Here
the little faculty of explanation ceases in its toiling endeavour
to make the midnight luminous as midday ; there are times in
history when even the preacher must be silent and the suppliant
feel his inability to complete his pleading, and the whole Church
stand still that the salvation of God without man's assistance
may be seen and magnified. The " fool " of the first verse will
never bring in the gladness of the last. It is never within his
power nor within his desire to turn the captivity of the world
or enlarge its freedom. We must turn away in hopeless disgust
from the " fool " who has denied God, and look up with trembling
and expectant reverence to the God whom he has denied.
Psalm XV.
1. Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy
holy hill ?
2. He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh
the truth in his heart.
3. He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neigh-
bour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour.
4. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned ; but he honoureth them
that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth
not.
5. He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward
against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved.
A CITIZEN OP ZION.
THE history of this psalm takes us back to the occasion of
the ark being brought into the tabernacle at Zion.* This
fixture of date has been endorsed as probable by the most
eminent ancient and modern critics. This psalm strikingly
resembles its immediate predecessor, and it is supposed that it
may have been recited before the tabernacle when the ark was
placed in it. The great cry of this psalm goes out from a solici-
tude that concerns itself with the question of permanence. Up to
this point the history of the ark and of the people who associated
their worship with it was marked by transitoriness, uncertainty,
continual and anxious movement. There is a time when such
action becomes weariness, and in that moment rest is above all
things desired. Why should we strike our camp and be oflf once
more ? Why can we not find an abiding-place where fields
may be grown and where the altar may be permanent, so that
in occupation and worship we may no longer be disturbed by
sudden calls to change our position ? The word " abide " in the
first verse is well rendered in the margin "sojourn," the idea
being that settlement has been effected and that the traveller is
9 Sam. vi. 12-1^.
126 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xv.
at last at home. The holy hill was the hill of Zion, an eminence
that was sanctified by the establishment upon it of the sacred
ark. Moses called Horeb "the mountain of God," and Zion is
called "holy" because crowned with the^ symbol and pledge of
the divine presence. So far, however, all this is necessarily but
local criticism ; the great question which we have to put concerns
our own permanent citizenship in the land of God, the truly
holy land, the land of consecration and service, unchanging and
ever enlarging. The enquiry we have to put is. How is citizen-
ship in it to be acquired and continued for ever ?
This psalm has been supposed to contain a full-length portrait
of the man whose position in Zion is assured and immovable.
The delineation may be taken as a variety of the Ten Command-
ments, and as in some sort an anticipation of the Beatitudes.
Compared, however, whether with the one or with the other, we
cannot but be struck with the difference in mental dignity and
eloquent expression, and with the conspicuous degree in which
both the Commandments and Beatitudes stand above the graphic
delineation. Account for it as we may, as a mere matter of
literary beauty, the contrast amounts to an argument. The Ten
Commandments were said to have been spoken by the Lord on
Mount Zion. In proof of the claim that the contrast is an
argument we have simply to read these Commandments as they
stand and then peruse David's portraiture of a good man ; carry
out the same process with the Beatitudes ; the issue will be that
the Commandments and Beatitudes separate themselves in calm
dignity, and worthily assume Divine authorship. Yet this portrai-
ture done by a human hand has uses of its own. The very fact that
it is drawn by a man's hand brings it nearer to us and emboldens
us to criticise it with a completer frankness. David at least
supposed such a man to be a possible character. What is he
in reality and in detail ? For an answer to that enquiry we must
turn to the psalm itselt.
" Walketh uprightly " \lit. perfect]. These words occur very
early in Scripture. In Genesis xvii. i we read, " Walk before
me, and be thou perfect." Here both the words are found. The
reference is to a consistent and conscientious life. The word
" perfect " has been rendered single-hearted ; Wyclifife renders it
Psalm XV.] A CITIZEN OF ZION. 127
simply " not wilfully or consciously committing sin." The man
who walks uprightly is to be distinguished from the man whose
delight is earthward, the base creature who seeks in the ground
mean satisfaction for mean desires. He is also to be distinguished
from the person who is given to inventions, tricks, and all
manner of questionable practices, throwing himself into various
attitudes and postures that he may suit himself to the fickle
minds of social temper and fashion, and so gain something for
himself under all circumstances, bending himself to those cir-
cumstances rather than dignifying them by his own high nature.
He is a man who despises the gain of oppressions, and shakes his
hand from holding of bribes, and shutteth his eyes from seeing
evil : to him the Lord has promised a high dwelling, and pledged
that his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks. The
Lord has been abundantly gracious in his promise to the upright
in heart. He that walketh uprightly walketh surely. " No good
thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly." If we
are truly anxious to know what is meant by uprightness, we
need not turn to etymology for a definition. The heart can
answer the great enquiry. We have been so constituted that we
know instantly that which is upright from that which is perverse
and crooked ; it is in vain therefore to pretend to be in search of
etymological definitions when it lies within our power through
the inspiration of God to lift up our character into moral dignity
and walk before heaven in full possession and beneficent use of
every moral faculty.
"Worketh righteousness." We have seen in the fourteenth
psalm that some men are described as " workers of iniquity."
The favoured citizen is a man who is industrious in goodness.
Righteousness is not to him a mere department of moral philo-
sophy upon which he has to speculate and theorise, nor is it
satisfied with the delineations wrought out in language by heroic
poets ; it is a condition of spirit and heart before God admitting
of culture within and sanctified expression without. The good
man may be described as building a life-temple of righteousness ;
he is continually looking around for material which he can put
into his building, and his satisfaction is in proportion to the
largeness and beauty of the edifice. Those who are addicted to
128 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xv.
iniquity are described as " workers " ; they are not ashamed of
their wicked profession, nor is their service marked by self-
indulgent lethargy. The sojourner in the holy city is not only
to do a better work, he is to do it with more serious determina-
tion and industry. He is not to be silent in the presence of
unrighteousness, but is at all costs to speak out in favour of true
justice and virtue. In his circle he is to be known as a man
who will spare no effort to advance righteousness, whether found
in the claims of an individual, the necessities of an institution, or
the policy of a nation. Suspect any form of so-called righteous-
ness that can be silent in the presence of oppression and that can
let wickedness pass by without indignant repudiation.
Up to this point the character consists of three attributes,
viz., uprightness, righteousness, and truthfulness. In a sense the
three are one, yet so various are the circumstances under which
virtue is tested, that each of these attributes acquires a speciality
of its own. The apparent redundance of expression is justified
by the redundance of temptation to which human integrity is
exposed. The upright walk is observed, the work in righteous-
ness is felt, and the truth which is uttered from the heart attracts
and confirms the confidence of men. Surely this second verse is
marked by the most penetrating spirituality. There is no escape
from its terms on the ground that they are vague or that they
admit of being applied in different senses and within different
limits. " He that saith he abideth in God ought himself also so
to walk even as he walked." " Wherefore putting away lying,
speak every man truth with his neighbour, for we are members
one of another," — that is to say even social considerations ought
to bind men to truth and its fearless utterance; trustees must
not tamper with the property which they hold in charge ; even
if there were no divine fealty involved in this matter of truth-
speaking, our social relations and bonds should make it imperative.
We now come into a series of details by which the substantial
character can be tested at various points. It is right that there
should be such testing, because the proverb has been established
beyond dispute that "a man is no stronger than his weakest
point" If a man's character may be represented by the number
ten, it is perfectly possible that he may be strong in nine of the
Psalm XV.] A CITIZEN OF ZION. 129
points, but utterly fail in the last. Seeing therefore that our
conduct is made up not only of a great spiritual intention, but
of innumerable and many-coloured details, it is essential to
complete cross-examination that each of the details be tested
as a separate life and judged as involving, at least indirectly,
the completeness of the whole character. A man may be no
"backbiter," yet he may have reasons for associating with a
" vile person." A man may have no wish to put out his money
to usury, in the sense of wilfully profiting by the loss of others,
or extorting from them returns which are illegitimate and fatally
excessive, yet he may not be disinclined to take up a reproach
against some of his neighbours. The great lesson is that we
are not to pride ourselves upon individual virtues, and suppose
that they will overbalance a great many insignificant drawbacks.
Upon all such matters individual cross-examination is alone
possible. When any man attempts to exhort the public upon
these points he should be restrained by the recollection that he
can only point to ideals which have been drawn by cleaner and
abler hands, and not attempt to exemplify the ideals which he
adores. We shall miss the great purpose of the psalm if we set
ourselves to a merely critical estimate of some of its details. We
may for example be anxious to know what is meant by "swear
to one's hurt," and to have a detailed definition of what is meant
by putting out money to usury. It is not too much to assume
that when the mind allows itself to be drawn away by enquiries
of this kind, it is too often obeying the suggestions of a heart
that is only looking round for an excuse to justify some violation
of the law. Under the ancient economy we have seen that if
a man made an unguarded oath he was bound to keep it, if it
injured himself alone; but it was graciously provided that if
the oath involved any evil or loss to other men a trespass-
offering was ordained. This is the very spirit of all great laws,
namely, that a man must be severe to himself, never shrinking
from the infliction of the most painful punishment, whilst he is
zealously careful of the interests and feelings of other men.
With reverence we may argue from the human oath upwards
to the divine decree, and there we shall find that God binds
himself by a vow which he cannot change. Jesus Christ realised
this gracious law in his own priesthood : " Having loved his own
VOL. XII. 9
130 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xv.
which were in the world, he loved them unto the end." J* Who
for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising
the shame " — observe, endured the cross, went through all its
shame and agony, shrank back from nothing of its ignominy
and bitter loss, but completed the sorrow that he might begin
the joy.
The whole psalm may be taken as a promise to righteousness
and an implied threatening to wickedness. If this is the portion
of the good man it is not difficult to foresee the destiny of the
man who is not good. The wicked man shall not enter the
tabernacle or dwell in the holy hill. The very purity of
the sacred habitation would burn him as with judicial fire.
Cleverness, prosperity, fame hardly distinguishable from worship,
will not stand the wicked man in good stead when he attempts
to enter the holy place. Only he that hath clean hands and a
pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity nor
sworn deceitfully, shall receive the blessing from the Lord.
We need not marvel therefore that it is said, " Ye must be born
again." "A man shall not be established by wickedness;"
there is no firmness in its advantages, time will not spare its
barren heaven of supposed "prosperity and security ; it endureth
but for a night ; in the light of the morning it shall not be found.
Now that we know by many a delineation the right meaning
of holy character let us not delay to perfect its attainment ; let
this indeed be the one object of our life, and if our prayers seem
to have comprehended the whole circle of benefaction, let them
come back and concentrate themselves in one mighty cry that
God would create within us a clean heart and renew within
us a right spirit. " O send out thy light and thy truth : let
them lead me ; let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy
tabernacles."
PRAYER.
Almighty God, we have heard voices of gladness in thy word, for which
we bless thee. Thou hast caused us to see the sunlight of the coming time
when Jesus Christ shall be seated upon the throne, and all men shall lift up
their heart-songs unto him, who, through blood, answered the charge of sin,
and by intercession made all human prayer prevail. We rejoice that there is
such a future, for in the present there is pain and darkness and difficulty, which
we have neither strength nor skill to overcome. To-day is a day of darkness.
The present is a troubled and tumultuous sea, but there is thy to-morrow
coming when the cloud shall be dispelled, and thy sun shall write the
answer of light upon every mystery that has troubled the mind of man.
Send upon us a renewal of thy pardoning love : lift from us the load
that oppresses us, send one liberating ray through the dark gloom that
gathers around our self-accusing souls. We come in Christ's name, we stop
at Christ's Cross, we sit down under the shed blood ; the blood of Jesus
Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin — even our sin can be cleansed by that
precious blood : God be merciful unto us sinners. Amen.
Psalm xvi.
A MICTHAM OP DAVID.
" A MICHTAM," some say, a musical term. There is another
2~\. and preferable interpretation — namely, "a golden legend."
Under this intdS-pretation we may regard the psalm as a kind of
jewel-case. All the best treasures of the great singer are to be
found in this precious casket. Call the psalm a golden treasury ;
then it will come before us as containing the most precious things
David ever thought about, the most precious hopes by which
David was ever animated ; a collection of apothegms ; pithy,
solid, grand sentences ; words to be quoted in the field of battle,
to be whispered in the chamber of afQiction, to be breathed in
the hour and article of death. Let us see how far the psalm
justifies that interpretation of the word Michtam.
The Psalmist will be " preserved " ; he will not only be
created. There is a cold Deism which says : Having been
created, that is enough ; the rest belongs to myself; I must
132 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xvi.
attend to the details of life; creation may have been a divine
act, but all education, culture, progress, preservation must fall
under my own personal care. The Psalmist begins in another
tone. He opens his psalm with the great word "preserve," —
equal to, Attend to all my cares and wants ; pity my feebleness ;
take hold of my right hand and of my left hand, and be round
about me, and never leave me for one moment to myself. That
is true worship. Only a sense of the divine nearness of that
kind can adequately sustain a noble and growing religion. We
need a daily prayer ; we die for want of daily food ; every
morning must be a revelation in light, every night must be a
revelation in rest. " Pray without ceasing " ; pray for the
renewal of the tissue, the continual numbering of the hairs of the
head, the suggestion of every syllable, the inspiration of every
thought. This is not a selfish preservation, a preservation from
evil, or danger, or suffering only, but the kind of preservation
that is necessary to growth. Who has not seen the guards
round the trees, especially the little trees, the young growths, so
that they may have a chance of taking hold of the earth, and
lifting themselves up to the sun, and bringing out of themselves
all the secret of the divine purpose in their creation ? A selfish
preservation would be an impious desire, but the preservation
being asked for as an opportunity of growth, is a preservation
for which the noblest souls may daily pray. It is, then, not
enough to have been created : even that divine act becomes
deteriorated and spoiled, impoverished, utterly depleted of all
ennobling purpose and inspiration, unless it be followed by
continual husbandry or shepherdliness, nursing or culture — for
the figure admits of every variety of change — the end being
growth, strength, fruitfulness.
" For in thee do I put my trust." That was the claim which
the Psalmist felt he had upon God. It is a great claim. The
words may be so uttered as to become a commonplace ; but there
is nothing commonplace, in the sense of trivial, in such words as
these. The meaning is : I have committed myself to thee ; we
stand or fall together ; I have boldly told the nations that I have
no other sanctuary, no other hope, and that if help do not come
from heaven I am weak like other men. It is a noble challenge ;
Psalm xvi.] A MICHTAM OP DAVID. 133
it is the only course by which we can really — that is, livingly
and exhaustively — glorify God. We do not give to him our
veneration only, our formal and distant respect, but we plunge
ourselves into him ; we cut off all other associations, and live,
and move, and have our being in God. Where such a challenge
can be addressed with the sincerity of the heart, all heaven
seems to be too little to form an answer to an appeal so complete
in its pathos.
The Psalmist gives an outline of the Universal Church whilst
he is in this hot rapture. Not until imagination burns do men
become poet-prophets. Nothing can be done in cold mind, dry
intellect, icy blood. The Psalmist having uttered his prayer,
looks round about, and sees " the saints," and " the excellent "
" that are in the earth." With ineffable spiritual modesty he
says, in words difficult of translation, " My goodness extendeth
not to thee," as though he would say : I have no status before
thee, if it become a mere matter of argument and rightful
possession ; that is forfeited ; but I have this in my heart which
thou wilt appreciate, a desire for the communion and fellowship
of everybody who loves thee. That in itself is a conception of
true worship. We cannot extend the altar, but we can extend
the church. The Cross does not subject itself to our manipula-
tion, but the meaning of the Cross may be spoken in every tongue
under heaven, and every soul may be invited to this great festival
of love. This is the germ of the Universal Church. Up to this
time we have been limited by a local term ; we have had long
pilgrimage with one called Israel : now we begin to see the day
breaking over distant lands. The earth is greener than we
thought it to be ; there are harvest-fields beyond the river which
we counted our limit : on the other side Jordan, and on the othe-
side Euphrates — yea, even to the ends of the earth, — there is a
possibility of growth and a possibility of harvest.
" But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent,
in whom is all my delight" (ver. 3). This is the communion of
saints. This is the truly united church. Observe, the terms are
themselves of a universal quality: "the saints," "the excellent;"
the reference is to character, not to opinion, not to varied ways of
looking at things which cannot be positively settled ; the Psalmist
134 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xvi.
dwells upon the eternal quantity — character, holiness, excellence,
pureness ; — these speak all languages, assume the hues of all
climes, and under manifold outward diversity conceal an agree-
ment subtle and undefinable as life itself. Who has discovered
life ? — who has taken it out with his dainty fingers and looked at
it objectively ? Yet it is everywhere — a spirit, a ghost, a mystery,
giving its real value to everything, making a child valuable to
the state, making the tiniest life a centre of sensitiveness — a
possibility of agony. Did we look in this direction, we should
lose all that is bitter in sectarianism, and cherish all that is
good in the proper distribution of gift, and talent, and spiritual
capacity. We should then belong to the Universal Church.
Men are one, to a large extent, in worship. When they rise
from their knees they begin to contend with one another: then
"pray without ceasing." This is the great gem which we have
found in this golden treasury : a conception of humanity — new,
gracious, inclusive.
"Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god"
(ver. 4).
The word " hasten " comes from a root which signifies to buy
a wife. The idea of the Psalmist, therefore, is — ^Their sorrows
shall be multiplied that go out after idolatry, — which has again
and again been associated with adultery in the whole of the Old
Testament writings. " After another god." Where do we find
the word "god" in the plural number? Opening the divine
book we read, " In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth ; " and reading further on, we find the mysterious plural as
used by the Eternal himself, signifying holy and inaccessible
mysteries of being. But where is the word vulgarised and used
as a term of temptation ? Verily, in the grammar of the serpent.
Said he, " Ye shall be as gods." A new term in what little
human speech was then possible ; an impiety in grammar ; a
distant and not at all obvious suggestion in the direction of
polytheism. Who can tell how such ideas get into the mind ?
There is no insobriety in saying that they are insinuated into
the mind by tempting spirits. Trifle with grammar, and you may
come to trifle with theology ; deplete language of its morality,
and you may deplete worship of its inspiration. The Psalmist
Psalm xvi.] A MICHTAM OF DAVID. 135
here pledges himself to a definite prophecy. We are entitled to
ask, Is it true ? History can be the only field of evidence ; by
history, meaning the religious experience of the individual and
the religious experience of the commonwealth. The more gods,
the more sorrow; the more gods, the more familiarity, the less
reverence, and the less worship. The Chinese, who have thou-
sands of deities, flog the gods that do not answer them. This is
literal, and this is necessary ; to have innumerable gods is to have
no god ; to have a life all miracles is to be destitute of the super-
natural ; we must have unity, the sacred mystery of personality,
the grand idea of centralisation, monarchy, eternal supremacy.
Why does the Psalmist speak in these high and noble tones?
The reason is satisfactory. He bases his larger hope upon his
own complete and abiding happiness. Thus the man himself
becomes the argument : —
"The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup : thou main--
tainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have
a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel : my
reins also instruct me in the night seasons. I have set the Lord always
before me : because he i^ at my right hand, I shall not be moved. There-
fore ..." (vers. 5-9).
This is an appeal which is not only tenable, but graciously com-
pulsory. "The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of
my cup " — literally, of my condition in life ; I have nothing else ;
— but, as some commentator has said, how rich must he be who
possesses the Possessor of all ! "Thou maintainest my lot,"
not only thou directest me in general providence, for in that sense
God holds the wicked in his power, but thou dost keep my lot
for me; it is evermore in thy right hand ; I am not put in trust
with it, because some mishap might occur in this life of tumult,
and strange and bewildering surprise ; thou dost dispose the lot,
and then keep it in thine own hands. So that the soul lives in
continual nearness to the Father, within whisper-distance of him,
so that communication can pass and repass, and the outer world
not know when his signal has flamed in the heavens for the
guidance of the dependent and adoring soul.
"The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places" (ver. 6).
The land was marked out by lines, so that the inheritance began
at this point and ended at that point; it wa? toward the rising of
136 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xvi.
the sun, or toward the setting of the sun; or was near the river,
or was far off among the hills ; but it was an inheritance that
"fell out," that belonged to the individual whose name was
divinely associated with it; and the Psalmist says, "The lines
are fallen unto me in pleasant places." No matter where they
are, for the whole land is pleasant. Is it not possible to think
our inheritance the very best of all ? The same blessed and
comforting thought is felt in the family. What mother does not
think her own children the very best ? — admitting, as she may
do, with a mother's reluctance, this drawback and that disadvan-
tage; still, taking a certain view of the case, how her children
stand up with attractions, in her judgment, not to be surpassed I
So every man may deal with his inheritance. He may call it " a
goodly heritage." Though some years there be little upon it,
sill the heritage is "goodly": the year before last the harvest
was very abundant, and next year it may be more abundant still.
The heritage is not to be blamed : the climate may be variable;
all the transitory influences of the year may be more or less dis-
appointing, but the heritage, the land, is moist with a divine
blessing, living with a divine promise. He who takes this view
of life — its cup, its lot, its heritage — has the contented mind
which is a continual feast.
Now arises the advantage of connecting the Psalms with the
period of history at which they were written. Many of these
Psalms have their historical counterpart in the Books of Samuel.
Referring to the history as given in those books, you will find
that these exclamations on the part of the Psalmist are not the
utterances of a rhapsodist. These are not terms in poetry, or
phases of an imaginative life : the man who wrote all these
words was not living in some lordly castle, whence he could
survey velvet lawns, and mj^sterious landscapes, and fruitful
gardens, and hear the singing of birds that lingered around the
castle roof as if charmed by some subtle hospitality within ; the
man who wrote this psalm may be said to have written part of it
upon the rock, to have finished the sentence in a cave, to have
completed the eloquence when the air was rent by the cry of
pursuing foes. In all such psalms the circumstances are the true
commentaries. Enough for us to know at this moment that this
Psalm xvi.] A MICHTAM OF DAVID. 137
man was not uttering a Sabbath-hymn in a church specially built
for him, and protected as to all intrusion and unholy violence
and trespass ; he was writing in an unroofed church, or writing
in a hidden den or cave. If trust in the living God will stand
the test of such circumstances, he must be a bold man who can
throw away the advantage of thus vitally associating himself with
the living God.
How the ideas grow on the expanding mind of the harper !
Not only does he see an outline of the Universal Church, but
aid g with that, and almost consequent upon it, he sees an out-
line of Immortality. This is an idea which has been growing in
the Old Testament. Now and again some word has been inter-
jected into the story that did not seem to belong to it, or was of
another quality — a word with a colour, a flush, as if light from an
unknown source had struck upon it and lighted it up into new
beauty. Job has said one or two words for the explanation of
which we must wait; the Psalmist now speaks of his flesh resting
in hope, of his soul not being left in the unseen place,^ and of the
Holy One not seeing corruption. A beautiful threefold division,
too, is coming into human language : — " My flesh," " my heart,"
" my soul," — what more can the apostle say in his noble rapture
but " body, soul, and spirit" ? No fourth quality has been added.
David, in whom was sleeping, according to the flesh, the Son of
God, began to see a strange outlining of new possibilities of
being. He is more than flesh, he is more than soul — he is flesh,
soul, and heart; and because he has this conception of the inner
nature he says. Surely the flesh shall share this glory somehow ;
I cannot tell in what manner, but " my flesh also shall rest in
hope." As if to say, I cannot tell all that is in me ; I am
struggling to say something that will not be said, but I am alive,
stirred, inflamed : oh that some prophet gifted with the genius of
words could interpret me into speech ! To impair the doctrine
of immortality is to strike at the goodness of God. In denying
immortality we may be said to deny the Creator. We cannot
treat immortality as a doctrine only ; it is really part of the
divine nature. Given God, and immortality in some form is a
necessity. Has he created us simply to let us die ? Has he
given us all these gifts merely to mock us at the last, by allowing
138 . THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xvi.
us to drop into oblivion and nothingness ? Does he permit us to
climb to the ver}' door of heaven, and to hear the songs that are
sung inside, simply that he may thunder to lis, You cannot have
part or lot in this inheritance ; your destiny is obliteration ?
Some argument must be founded upon instinct, impulse, yearn-
ing, longing, speechless unconsciousness. When we are all,
body, soul, and spirit, lifting ourselves up to him, is it like him
to deny the aspiration ? or like him to give us that further
movement which will connect us consciously with his own
eternity ? To this latter faith I incline. God has not created
aspirations which he cannot satisfy. There is more in us than
we can tell, and to these wordless impulses God sends this
revelation of immortality.
The New Testament use of this psalm we will find in Acts ii.
25-28 : "For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord
always before my face, for^ he is on my right hand, that I should
not be moved : Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue
was glad ; moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope : Because
thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine
Holy One to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the
ways of life ; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy counte-
nance." " Being a prophet," Peter adds, " being a prophet, and
knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the
fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ
to sit on his throne ; he seeing this before spake of the resurrec-
tion of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh
did see corruption." We must bring Christ into the Psalms as
well as history, to catch all their light, to hear all their music,
and enjoy all their gladness. O blessed darling of Israel, David,
thou wast the sweet singer of Israel ; Christ was in thee. Who
can explain the mystery of heredity and propagation ? The very
Son of God was in him at the time. He was, according to the
flesh, the father of the Messiah at the time. And if we are related
to the past, who can tell in what degree and in what mysterious
manner we are related to the future ? Who is singing in that
songster, preaching in that preacher, writing in that author ? The
world may have to wait ages before it gets the full explanation of
many a word of eloquence, and many a deed of charity.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, thou givest songs in the night-time ; that is our surprise.
Thou makest us to pray in the morning, and causest us to sing at night,
and at midday thou dost make us lie down in the shadow, for the heat
is too great for us. All the day long thy love is revealed unto us; thou
hast not left one hour without a sign of thy presence and care. We bless
thee for this assurance ; it is triumph in the day of battle, it is healing in
the night of sickness, it is immortality in the last struggle. We thank thee
we are able to say that in our right hand is thy rod, and in our left hand
thy staff, and though the valley of the shadow of death is still where it
ever was, yet a great light from heaven shines upon it, and it becomes an
upward way — a valley leading to the skies. Behold, thou hast made all
things new. Out of the dust thou didst make man : is not the dust, then,
living — ancient dust— itself the remains of incalculable life ? Thou didst
turn the sheepskin into a covering for human nakedness : do not all things
minister to man ? Thou hast turned the common bread into thy body, O
Christ, and the wine into thy blood, O Lamb of God, and thou wilt perfect
this process of transformation until the whole earth shall become beautiful,
pure, a temple of God, full of holy song, the scene of holy service. We
delight to watch these processes of transformation, to see them in ourselves,
to behold the child passing away and the old man slowly coming on, to
see how the letter is dispossessed by the spirit, so that we who lived once
in a narrow limit now enjoy a glorious liberty; to watch how all things
that we once prized pass away like shadows that are unvalued, until a land
that we had not dreamed of comes down to us in our visions of faith, and
we are drawn to it as to an unseen and blessed country. Once we lived
in the letter, and in things visible, and in things we could handle, and in
things we called realities ; now, looking upon them all stored up in their
empty wealth, we say. Vanity of vanities ; all is vanity : these are but
symbols pointing us onward to the true things that abide for ever — the
things of thought and holiness, love and consecration, and hope and heaven,
Thus thou dost lead us on day by day. The child puts down his playthings
as exhausted, the youth lays hold of things that appear to be of immediate
value ; the man also puts these away, and begins to struggle after things
invisible, immeasuralilc,i neflable. Truly, this is the birth of the Spirit,
the new life, the larger existence, and only God can satisfy it, only Christ
can answer its questions, only the Holy Spirit can work within it the miracle
of contentment. We bless thee for all the tumult which has made us anxious
for rest ; even for the vain and noisy controversy which has made us yearn
for prayer. All things that help us towards the sanctuary are of thy
140 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
sending and thine appointing; they are mysteries from heaven: we accept
them as such, and bless the living Lord for such ministries. Thou knowest
what we need and that we are always needing. Thou hast made our life
a necessity, and our very sighing an aspiration. We must pray. We
say we cannot pray, and we pray whilst we say we cannot : our tears are
prayers, our groans are petitions, our unrest is a wordless speech addressed
to God. For the interpretation of these things we bless thee. We did not
understand them at the first, but now we see the whole meaning and bless
thee for it: this is the Lord's donig, and it is marvellous in our eyes.
Continue thy work of education, purification, even until we know the
meaning of sanctification — the spotless purity of God. Give us the mastery
of life, the high supremacy, which looks down upon it from heavenly heights
and scorns the things that threaten but cannot execute, that promise
but cannot fulfil, that tempt but cannot realise. This life we can have
in Christ Jesus thy Son — even this sovereignty over time and space. May
we so live in him that we know not whether we have eaten or not, whether
we have been fasting before God or feasting in some great banqueting-house
of heaven : deliver us from the consciousness which dwarfs the soul, which
imprisons and impoverishes the spirit, and give us to know that sweet
absorption in thy love which takes no note of weeks or days or months or
dying years, but is filled with Jhe eternity of God. Overrule for us what-
ever happens in life. Save us from looking at things when they are too
near at hand ; show us that distance is necessary to true judgment— distance
of time as well as (distance of space. May we therefore be in no haste to
sin with our tongue; may we have the grace of patience which waits to-day
and to-morrow and the third day, and then looks upon the perfectness of
God. Deliver us from all that would embitter our life. Wherein we have
been disappointed,- may our disappointment not become sourness in the soul.
Oh, keep us sweet of mind — pure, childlike in heart ; may we never lose the
morning dewiness, but feel how good a thing it is to be near God, and
accept life in its daily portions as a daily education. When we are ill
thou wilt know how to handle us, so that we shall know not the pressure —
yea, shall feel the comfort — of thine hand. When we are in darkness thou
canst still speak to us : for is not the song sweetest when the singer can-
not be seen ? and are there not messages which may not be delivered in
the light ? When we are weary, disquieted, and ill at ease, give us a sense
of thy nearness, and let our poor fingers touch the walls of thy sanctuary.
Look upon men and women who have done wrong, and are shut up in
prison for their wrong-doing. As for the criminal — is the criminal within
the region of prayer? Thou knowest: we cannot tell, for our prayers die
in sight of the awful wickedness. But surely the fool may be saved — the
man who has been snared and entrapped, who is sound at heart and generally
innocent ; the Lord have pity upon such, the Lord send comfort and hope
after penitence. Be with our dear ones far away, in other lands, yet still
at home ; some speaking other languages, and longing to speak their native
tongue ; some in trouble on the sea — that great and wide sea, wherein are
things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. The Lord hear
us, draw us to the Cross, the scene of blood, the Aceldama made by God
and not by men, the altar of propitiation, the mysterious mercy-seat. Amen.
Psalm xvii.l A PRAYER OF DAVID. 141
V
Psalm xvii.
A PRAYER OP DAVID.
WE have heard David sing, now let us hear him pray. He
played wonderfully upon his harp, — what is his skill
as a suppliant ? Does he know the ways of heaven ? Can he
speak the language of the skies, or any language of earth that can
be understood there ? This psalm is quite in a new style. It is
said to be in the early style of the sweet singer of Israel. There
is a charm in the early style of all great writers. It may be
efflorescent, and redundant ; yet there is wonderful passion in
it, an audacity that inspires, if it does not alFright ; although the
critic may see much to modify and rearrange, yet there is about
the young heart, the young religious life, something that fasci-
nates and stirs and blesses.
The prayer begins right boldly. Introduction there is none.
The suppliant would appear to be in great haste, and to be minded
to wait for his answer. The opening words of the psalm are a bold
moral appeal : — " Hear the right, O Lord." Not, Hear my side,
my way of putting the case ; but, Hear the man who is repre-
senting a righteous cause; whatever is done, let right be done.
This is the strength and glory of the Bible : it is a book of
righteousness ; its God is revealed as one who will do right.
God is implored to measure everything by a straight line, by a
perpendicular standard, to make no allowance on the one side or
the other, but to be just to all men. In the second verse the
same idea is continued. The "let" in the second clause of the
verse may be omitted ; then the words will stand thus : " Thine
eyes behold the things that are equal " ; in other words, God is
a God impartial, just, and true; the sentence of heaven must
not be modified by any narrow partiality : whatever goes down,
righteousness must stand. Let this be felt to be the spirit of
the whole Bible, and at once the book becomes a great and noble
sanctuary into which all men may run, assured that the measure
is right, and that the balances and the weights are just. This
should be the prayer of the battlefield — every battlefield ; the
scene of every controversy. Let right be done ! Who has not
thought that his banner alone was stg^inless ? Who \*^s not been
142 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xvii.
guilty of the injustice of supposing that there could be no right
on the other side ? Where is there a controversy that has not
on both sides of it elements of right ? What, then, should be
the true prayer of the soul that would have things adjusted upon
a permanent basis ? — that " right " should be done, that wherever
there is right it should be recognised, wherever there is wrong
it should be put down ; and that the whole process of divine
criticism should end in the establishment of the right alone.
The Psalmist is quite sure that he himself is sincere. The
verses which follow seem to be a kind of anticipation of the
Pharisee's self-satisfied prayer ; but they are nothing of the kind.
The reference in all these matters is not to sinlessness but to
sincerity. The Psalmist does not say : I am a pure man, without
stain upon the heart or hand. He says : I am a sincere man ;
the general purpose I have had in view is a purpose marked by
honesty. He does not represent himself as pure snow in the
face of heaven, but as a man whose supreme motive has been a
motive of honesty and general truthfulness. Sincerity can appeal
to the right. We draw our prayer out of our own character.
This suppliant is so sure of his own honesty that he says :
Let the whole case be settled honestly. At other times, when
he knows there is not a clean spot upon his whole constitution
— one sound healthy spot — he falls right down before God and
weeps out his soul in contrition ; but being engaged in a great
strife and knowing that he is substantially right as to motive
and purpose, he chooses the court in which he will have the case
tried, and the court he chooses is the high court of justice. Let
right be done. The appeal is an awful one. It is like inviting
the day of judgment prematurely. It is the invocation of a sword
which once unsheathed returns no more until it has rectified all
inequalities and all instances of injustice. We should be very
sure of our motive before we invoke the doing of right. It is
better for us to invoke the exercise of mercy. Most men will
get more from pity than they ever can get from righteousness.
Who dare stand before God and say. Let right be done ? Better
say, God be merciful to me a sinner ; Father, pity me, spare
me ; I am wholly without excuse before thee, but thy grace abounds
over my sin — God pity me |
Psalm xvii.] A PRAYER OF DAVID. 143
David's pleas are not without strength and pertinence. He
says he has been obedient so far as he could be : I have been
working steadily at the plough ; I have been faithful in speaking
thy word; I have habitually sought the sanctuary; and my
desire has been to serve God : therefore I appeal to the right.
Then he pleads his desire to be guided. In the fifth verse he
says, " Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip
not." If we thought he had been boasting too loudly, he corrects
our impression by thus casting himself upon the almightiness
of God. He is young, adventurous, but not romantic ; he will
still acknowledge that there are paths in which men ought to go
— literally, wheel-tracks ; so the fifth verse might read : Hold up
my goings in thy wheel-tracks ; I do not want to make new paths,
and to create new and perilous roads in the unmeasured wilder-
ness of time and life, I want to follow the chariots of God. So
prudence is compatible with youth ; so it is possible to be young,
bold, adventurous, and yet to cling to the conservative and the
established and the well tested. Who cares to make new roads
when good roads are already in existence ? Who would carry his
independence so far as to say that he will not travel by established
roads from one city to another, but will make a road of his own ?
Who does not see the folly of a boldness or enterprise of that kind ?
The analogy has its applications to our religious life. There are
old paths, old words, even old forms, — ancient, well-marked
wheel-tracks : enough for most of us to follow where God has led.
Then he pleads his intimacy with God : — " I have called upon
thee " — (ver. 6) — I know thee, thou knowest me altogether ; do
not let our friendship go for nothing ; complete it in perfect con-
summation, so that I may see light in thy light, and know the
fulness of thy purpose in my being. There are times when we
can turn our spiritual intimacy with God into immediate and
practical advantage. We have not to begin our communion in
the time of controversy; it is not in trouble that we originate
the building of the sanctuary ; but in hours of contentment and
blessedness and general prosperity we have been cultivating the
divine acquaintance, advancing our confidence on high, so that
when the trouble comes in great shocks and gusts and tempests,
God is not afar off but nigh at hand, and our intimacy becomes
144 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xviL
a real and valuable possession. Improve the quiet days, work
hard when the wind is low ; then when the days are full of
noise, and the air is an angry tempest, there will be less to do
in moving heaven, and in invoking and realising the right.
Observe the character of God as drawn by the Psalmist in this
prayer. We have seen that he regards God as righteous. That
must be the foundation of all true theology. There must be no
difficulties of a conscientious kind in our communion with heaven.
Once unsettle the moral confidence, and the whole creation of
a theological kind totters and dies, and properly so. Reason may
be baffled. Imagination may be confounded, but Conscience must
have a sure standing-place, an everlasting confidence, — must be
so persuaded of God's righteousness as to be able to say. The
end will be right ; at the last even hell will confess that its pit
is not too deep or its fire too hot. Conscience keeps the whole
nature right ; conscience chastens imagination, and throws a rein
upon the passion which would urge reason to undue and disastrous
lengths. God has always been careful to keep conscience as it
were upon his side, so that men might feel, whether by day or
by night, all processes of providence would end in righteousness.
The Psalmist also looks upon God as probing the heart, —
always seeking to know what is in it, watching its every throb
and flush of colour. It is about the heart that God may be said
to be anxious. Given a heart of honesty, a spirit that wishes
supremely to be in the right, then how merciful — yea, how pitiful
even to tears, and how patient beyond all known love is God, in
relation to every other department of life ! As we, on our side,
are solicitous that there should be no dispute on moral grounds,
in relation to the divine purpose and government, so God may
be said to be anxious, on his side, that our heart should be right.
That being so, he can understand the. ambition of reason and the
audacity of imagination.
But is the Psalmist's portraiture of the divine character all
drawn in stern lines ? Are there no tears in all the delinea-
tion ? The seventh verse is our reply : — " Shew thy lovingkind-
ness " — that would be beautiful if it stood alone, but the word
lovingkindness does not stand alone — "Shew thy marvellous
Psalm xvii.] A PRA YER OF DA VID 145
lovingkindness." Has any New Testament writer suggested a
tenderer aspect of f 0 divine character ? Observe how the words
accumulate : kindness, lovingkindness, marvellous lovingkindness.
Religion must not be a matter of abstract right, some lofty or
metaphysical geometry of perpendicular lines and horizontal
positions; it must go further and be more: and how much
further can it go, and how much more can it be, than as repre-
sented by such words as kindness, lovingkindness, mercy, tender
mercy, marvellous lovingkindness ? Now the balance seems to
be adjusted : the stern in law is balanced by the tender in pity.
This suppliant is a poet. He thinks in images. When did
he ever write without symbolism, metaphor, the fine colour
which is thrown upon common words by the poet-prophet ? In
this matter the Psalniist is just to himself, even in this pious
composition, this sacred address to the ear of God. In the eighth
verse he says, "Keep me as the apple of the eye." Religion
cannot do without metaphors. Religion itself, as we understand
it, is but a metaphor, pointing to its larger self, beyond the
horizon, above the zenith. "The apple of the eye" — literally,
the manikin of the eye, the little man in the eye; that central
eye, that without which there would be no eye. Keep me as the
gem, or living point, of the eye.
" Hide me under the shadow of thy wings " (ver. 8).
What wings ? Quote the Old Testament instances in which
this figure is used, and you will find that they are instances
relating to the eagle, the vulture, — flying things with great pinions-
that might almost darken the sun. Under such outspread pinions
would the Psalmist be hidden. These'are Hebrew figures, but we
are not Hebrews. Is any use made of these figures, nearer our
own custom, nearer our own simplicity ? The answer is in the
affirmative. Where the Hebrew says the " manikin " of the eye,
the Gentile language says the " daughter " of the eye — " the little
daughter " ; a gentler term, a coming-down to our historical
standing-place, without loss of dignity, but with some accession
of tenderness. " Wings " — wings of the eagle — wings of the
vulture, says the Hebrew ; but when the Saviour speaks, he
says, " as a hen." There is no loss of dignity ; there is a
revelation of household nearness and pity. The ancient figure
VOL. XII. 10
146 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xvii.
is — "as an eagle stirreth up her nest"; in the New Testament
the Saviour says, " I would have gathered thee as a hen doth
gather her brood under her wings," — poor wings, as compared with
the eagle's and the vulture's, but a mother's wings nevertheless ;
and but a figure after all, representing in some bold way, or in
some modest form, the available almightiness of the Almighty God.
Another figure occurs in the thirteenth verse: — "Arise, O
Lord, disappoint him." The English word " disappoint " does
not represent the original meaning in the most graphic form.
The figure is that of a champion going out to meet the enemy,
and to break him in pieces. Read : Arise, O Lord, go forth, meet
him ere he start from home ; be first on the field ; be ready to
encounter him the moment he comes out from his hiding-place,
and smite him with thy righteousness. Thus the Lord fights the
battle alone oftentimes. We are not called into the controversy
at all ; the whole shock takes place without our knowledge, yet
not without being an answer to our prayer. In the New Testa-
ment we have sketches of worldly men, but say whether there
is any sketch amongst them equal to the portraiture given in the
fourteenth verse of this Psalm. This is a perfect delineation of
the worldly man. It is impossible to add one useful line to it : — "
" Men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose
belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure : they are full of children,
and leave the rest of their substance to their babes " ; their life
is a limited life ; it is all visible, measurable, namable ; the whole
life can be written out in plain terms and figures, and the whole
value can be totaled in summary numbers. It is a pitiful man
who is sketched in the fourteenth verse — a worldling, a grubber, a
man who lives in the dust, — almost a beast. Whatever may have
been outworn by the process of the ages, this picture of the worldly
man is to-day correct in every line, vivid and true in every tint.
We now come to the fifteenth verse, so generally misunder-
stood and misapplied : — " As for me, I will behold thy face in
righteousness : I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy like-
ness." Who has not misread this verse by not peixeiving its
punctuation? How often has the comma after "awake" been
struck out, and thus the whole sense of the passage lost 1 It has
been read, " when I awake with thy likeness " ; being so read
Fsalm xvii.] A PR A YER OF DA VID. 147
it has been violated. Observe the punctuation, and further
comment is needless. We might turn it round thus : I shall be
satisfied with thy likeness when I awake. The man does not
awake with the likeness ; he is satisfied with the likeness when
he awakes. But why is he about to awake ? This is a note
of time. The explanation of this is in the third verse : — " Thou
hast visited me in the night." This prayer was a prayer offered
in darkness. Who can tell how many of the Psalms were night
thoughts ? How could a soldier find time to write psalms or
prayers in the day season, when every sound was an alarm,
every shadow was a challenge ? How could minstrels sing then,
or suppliants stop to write their prayers ? Beautiful is the figure
of the Psalmist writing his psalms at night : the hurly-burly done
for the day, and the scribe sets himself to make record of his
heart's deepest experiences. Who cannot compose best at night-
time ? The day seems to be made for active thought — outward,
urgent service, and the calm night for setting down in order the
recollections of the day's controversy. Now we come to the
fifteenth verse : — " As for me, I will behold thy face in righ-
teousness " ; I am about to sleep, to lie down and take what rest
I may ; I shall be satisfied with thy likeness when I awake : the
morning shall see me a stronger man, the morning shall bring
a larger and truer theology, the morning will be a time of liberty
and enlargement. 'Yet men do not know always what they are
saying as to the fulness of its meaning, its uttermost possibility
and final consummation. He is no fanatic who sees in such
words strugglings after immortality, the beginnings of a new
mysterious energy in the soul that will by-and-by be articulated
into resurrection. To sleep, now that we understand it, is to die ;
to awake, now that we see the larger meanings of things, is
resurrection. We did not see these things at the first, but now
they are clear. We thought of sleep in a merely animal sense :
it was a bodily recreation, something to be done at the end of
a period of service. Now that we have more light we see clearly
that sleep is death, waking resurrection, and when we awake we
shall see the likeness of God, and we shall be satisfied with that
likeness ; that is to say, he shall come into us, fill us : we shall
be like him, for we shall see him as he is. A transforming sight :
whilst we gaze upon the beautiful, we ourselves shall be beautified.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, let it please thee to show us more and more of the beauty
and tenderness of thy Son. It is thine to show Christ to the heart — we
cannot see him with our dull eyes, but if thou dost anoint our eyes with
eye-salve that we may see, we shall behold him near at hand, the great
light and the only life. We have heard of him by the hearing of the ear —
now would we receive him into the sanctuary of our love, and have long
converse with him, and tender, as those who exchange deepest confidences,
and express to one another the most urgent necessities and longings of the
heart. We would hear him speak to us in his whisper as well as in his
great thunder : we would hear from him the voice still and small that will not
add to our grief, but utterly take it away, by the tenderness of the sympathy,
by the richness of the grace with which it will speak to our wounded spirits.
Thou hast yet more to say unto us — thou art never done — always is there
one more word — one other message, one further revelation. Thus dost thou
take us along the road of our life promising and fulfilling, and yet making
every fulfilment itself a still richer promise. Thou hast kept the good wine
until now ; we behold the beauty of the Lord as we never saw it before — it
is richer, tenderer, nearer, more complete in its persuasiveness, more power-
ful in its attraction. May we thus see it every day, until we exchange all
meaner lights and all poorer mediums for the great glory and the unveiled
majesty in heaven. Amen.
Psalm xviii.
[Note. — Critics are very definite in their judgment that this psalm is
the most magnificent ode which David composed. It was sung in the last
years of prosperity, when the surrounding nations all knelt before the
king in homage and presented to him tribute. The form of the psalm is
distinctly after the manner of David, who loved to dwell upon the phenomena
of the natural world and to find his way through nature up to nature's
God. Probably the psalm was composed m view of the occurrence of some
great festival. It begins with unusual solemnity. Overwhelmed by a sea
of trouble, and sinking to the very gates of hell, the king cries to Jehovah
for help ; his prayer is heard, and the answer comes accompanied with
all the artillery of heaven. A competent critic has said : "Its wealth of
metaphor, its power of vivid word-painting, its accurate observation of
nature, its grandeur and force of imagination, all meet us here; but above
all the fact that the bard of Israel wrote under the mighty conviction of
the power and priesence of Jehovah. The phenomena of the natural world
Psalm xviii.] GLORIFIED PROVIDENCE. 149
appealed to his imagination as to that of poets generally, but with this
addition, that they were all manifestations of a supreme glory and goodness
behind them." The psalm closes with the same high and solemn note
with which it began.]
GLORIFIED PROVIDENCE.
THE title states that the words of this song were spoken
by David unto the Lord in the day that the Lord delivered
him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul.
This, therefore, fixes the circumstances and consequently the
historical atmosphere in which the whole production must be
studied. It is important to know that there is an actual historical
background, and that the poet is not inventing phrases merely
for the sake of relieving a passing religious emotion. In order
to understand the poetry we must understand the history, and
in order to do the history full justice we must carry it up to
its poetical enlargements and interpretations. Every fact has a
corresponding parable, and every parable points to an underlying
fact. Forgetfulness of this simple rule has led to great bewilder-
ment, and in some cases to not a little moral confusion. It has
been said that parable is the larger truth. This is emphatically so
in the interpretation of all matters connected with the kingdom
of God. It was left for Jesus Christ, in a very large degree,
to deal with this infinite region of parable. Other teachers told
what they had seen, and were content to be regarded as mere
eye-witnesses ; up to that point their testimony was of course
invaluable ; but a teacher was needed who would go beyond the
strictly factual basis and give the world those larger interpre-
tations which are possible only to parabolical embodiment. In
the light of these considerations, we must regard the Psalm as
poetical history, or historical poetry. It should be read con-
currently with 2 Samuel xxii. Reading the one in immediate
sequence to the other will form an admirable illustration of what
we have said concerning the translation of history into poetry.
The whole psalm may be taken as a glorifying of divine govern-
ment. The divine government is there of course as a simple
and positive fact, but it required an imagination quickened by
David's agonistic experience to express in adequate terms the
grandeur of the thoughts surrounding the idea of God's throne
150 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xviii.
and rule. We believe, however, that the full explanation of
a psalm can only be realized in proportion as we consider it in
its relations to Jesus Christ. What was impossible to David was
possible to the Messiah whom he prophetically represented.
We have no hesitation, therefore, in fixing this as one of the
Messianic psalms, and finding in the triumph and sovereignty of
Jesus Christ the fact which is but poorly approached even by this
redundance of poetical metaphor and eloquence. This psalm is
a kind of apocalypse in anticipation. The man who wrote the
Book of Revelation might have begun his literary career by
writing the eighteenth psalm. There is the same grand command
of language, the same daring imagery, the same noble contempt
for all the material forces which appear to be so formidable to the
merely material investigator. What is standard and fixed and
immovable to the man whose mind operates within the limits
of matter, becomes quite easy of treatment, and is indeed blown
about as by a great wind, under the conception of a man whose
imagination is ennobled by religious faith and sanctified by
religious humility. In this psalm, for example, the earth shakes
and trembles ; the foundations also of the hills are moved and
shaken, because of the wrath of heaven; out of God's nostrils
there goes up a smoke, and fire out of his mouth devours, and
flaming coals blaze from his lips. In his condescension God
bows the heavens also, and comes down, and a black cloud —
infinite masses of rain — is gathered and bent towards the earth
under the majestic movement. God makes darkness his secret
place, and his pavilion round about him were dark waters and
thick clouds of the skies : the Lord thunders in the heavens, and
the Highest gives forth his voice, and the sound of that voice
is as the commingling of hailstones and coals of fire. All this
sublime imagery is obviously apocalyptic, and is to be interpreted
by the imagination rather than inquired into by the critical
faculty.
Turning to the psalm for the purpose of distinct religious
edification, let us note the particular providence which was
glorified. This is stated in verses 4-6 : —
"The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men
Psalm xviii.] GLORIFIED PROVIDENCE. i^i
made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about : the snares
of death prevented me. In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried
unto my God : he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came
before him, even into his ears."
No attempt is here made to diminish the severity of the crisis.
Often when a great agony is overpast the sufferer himself forgets
its intensity, and is inclined to suppose that it might have been
cured by less ostentatious means than had been adopted for its
pacification. We are seldom critically correct in the recollec-
tion of our sorrows. We either unduly magnify them, or we so
far modify their intensity as to make any remedial measures look
as simple and superficial as possible. David vividly remembered
all his afflictive experience. He does not hesitate to speak of
that experience in words which are metaphorical, if not romantic,
without at all affecting the reality of the trouble through which
he had passed. He says "the sorrows of death compassed"
him. Some have interpreted this expression as birth-pangs ;
others again have used the word cords. It has been thought
that the figure of the hunter in the next verse, in which we read
of the snares of death, fixes the meaning there to be cords.
In Samuel, David represents himself as submerged or over-
whelmed by the progress or waves of the trouble which had
been made to pass over him. Sometimes indeed we do not
know what real trouble we have been in until we have been
removed from it for some distance and thus enabled to con-
template it in its totality. Again and again the mind exclaims
concerning the impossibility that such and such trouble can really
have been survived. We are familiar with the experience which
declares that certain afflictions could not possibly be borne
a second time. It is well to bear in memory our greatest
sorrows that we may also recollect our greatest deliverances.
There is no true piety in undervaluing the darkness and the
horror through which the soul has passed. Instead of making
light of the most tragical experiences of life, we should rather
accumulate them, that we may see how wondrous has been
the interposition of the divine hand and how adequate are the
resources of Heaven to all the necessities of this mortal condition.
Even admitting the words to be metaphorical, they present a
vivid picture of what human sorrow may be, — whatever may
152 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xviii.
be rationally imagined may be actually undergone ; as to David's
own consciousness, what is here stated was a matter of the
sternest reality. It should be borne in mind, too, that trouble
is a different thing to different men, even when it comes in the
same guise and quantity. Much must depend upon tempera-
ment. Things animate suffer; things inanimate do not respond
to the blow with which they are struck. The poetic temperament
is the most suffering of all. According to the sensitiveness of
the nature is the terribleness of the stroke which falls upon it.
David had the gift of expression even in this matter of trouble ;
he remembered every pang; he saw every spectral image; he
could give a name to every passing emotion ; he grew eloquent
in the redundance of his language in setting forth the blackness
and terribleness of the night through which his soul had been
supernaturally conducted. Other men have no gift of telling
the extent of afQiction which they have undergone. They know
they have been in trouble, but they have no words wherewith
to set forth before the minds of others adequate images of their
actual distress. We must form our estimate of human experi-
ence either from the one class or the other, — that is, from those
who have the gift of expression, or from those who suffer in
silence : taking the language of such a man as David for our
guide, we cannot but see here the all but infinite capability of
human nature in the matter of positive and intolerable anguish,
It is curious to notice, too, how sorrow in its utmost pain and
fear tends downward when it seeks for some adequate image.
As surely as our high and triumphant joy goes up to heaven for
its metaphors and symbols, so truly does our extremest anguish
find only in hell that which is adequate to give even an outline
of its burning pain. When in the fourth verse the Psalmist
speaks of " the sorrows of death," and in the fifth verse points to
" the sorrows of hell," we see a natural operation of the human
mind. Left to itself, the human mind turns its own experience
into a revelation alike of heaven and of hell. As mere terms
these may have been brought to us by others, but being brought
they instantly fit an experience which is full of joy or sorrow.
Even were the words blotted from the inspired page, we should
still be conscious of the realities within us which these words
more fitly typify than any others.
Psalm xviii.] GLORtFtED PROVIDENCE. 153
This being the bitter and awful experience of David, we may
, now turn to the providence by which he was deHvered, as
recorded in the seventh and following verses. Now let us, in the
first instance, try to find the literal line, the plain matter-of-fact
occurrence, which runs through the whole of this poetical repre-
sentation. David means to say that the enemy was thrown into
consternation by natural phenomena. He describes these pheno-
mena as shakings of the earth arid movings of its foundations,
and the strange darts of light which seemed to shoot through and
through the pavilion of darkness. Stripped of the poetry, the
fact remains that there are times when all nature seems to be
employed on the side of vindicating righteousness or punishing
iniquity. Account for it as we may, there is the fact that in our
own experience there are hours when nature seems to be un-
willing to accept our co-operation, when in very deed it would
seem almost personally to contradict and exasperate us, setting
our ingenuity at defiance and repelling the hand that would
cultivate and control.
In the next place, the Psalmist sets it down as a familiar
thought that the supernatural may overrule the ordinary, — that is
to say, that spiritual impressions may absorb every other feeling.
Everywhere the Psalmist saw the living God. The whole
universe seemed to be alive with his presence and to be afraid
of his glance. The hills could not stand still as he approached
them, and the shadow of the cherub upon which he did fly
seemed to bring the darkness of night with it. The earth was
no longer a place of mere dust in the estimation of the Psalmist;
it was a church filled by the living presence of the eternal God ;
on every side was the burning altar, and the whole air was
charged with holy incense. This of course is a poetical repre-
sentation, but underneath it is a plain and obvious reality,
confirmed by the spiritual experience of every Christian. There
are seasons when we can almost see God in the operations of
nature — in the beauty of the flower, in the splendour of the stars,
in all the comeliness of summer, in all the bountifulness of
hospitable harvest. At other times God may seem afar off, but
in these better seasons he is nigh at hand : the material seems to
have been reduced to a minimum, and all nature takes up the
154 ^HE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xviii.
parable of the kingdom of heaven, and relates it in every hue of
language and every tone of music. Then the delighted dreamer
exclaims, Lo, God is here, and I knew it not ! This is none
other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
We next see how vividly the Psalmist realised the absolute
power of mind over matter : —
" Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world
were discovered at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of thy
nostrils" (ver. 15).
These words represent the idea that when mind is fully roused,
and is in its noblest action, all matter trembles in its presence as
a thing servile and helpless. Matter appears to be strong and
noble under some circumstances, but under other conditions it
trembles and fades and dies out of sight as that which is con-
temptible and unworthy to be seen when the Lord's power is
fully abroad. What is this but saying in plain language that
there are times when the universe appears to be a thing of mind
rather than a thing of matter — when the whole plan of creation
seems to be an infinite thought rather than a complicated
mechanism ? Once let the mind seize the idea that the spiritual
is greater than the material, and then only poetry can express
the prose fact that the throne of the universe is filled by a Spirit,
infinite, glorious, and loving, and that all so-called iron law is in
the power of that Spirit, to be moulded and appointed according
to its beneficent designs.
Passing from this point, the Psalmist shows how the impossible
was made possible by the omnipotence of God.
"For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped
over a wall" (ver. 29).
" He maketh my feet like hinds' feet, and setteth me upon my high places.
He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine
arms " (vers. 33, 34).
This also is a poetical way of representing the fact that impossi-
bihties have often been made possible in our own experience.
Looking back upon certain combinations of circumstances, we
cannot but feel that we were surrounded by great and high walls,
and that troops of dangers thickened around us in deadly array.
Now that we see ourselves in a " large place," we are tempted to
Psalm xviii.] GLORIFIED PROVIDENCE. 155
believe that we are still in a dream, and that our liberty is
a thing which we hold only in the uncertain daylight of a
momentary vision. We say it is not possible that we can have
escaped' all our foes and entirely left behind us the "great and
terrible wilderness." We still feel as if the enemy might seize
us, and as if a moment's boasting would mean lifelong subjugation
to the tyranny which we have supposedly escaped. In this view
of our own circumstances, our song is not permitted to reach
its full compass of delight, lest the enemy should overhear our
triumphing and again seize us as his prey. We are pursued by
our enemies ; when our imagination is vexed by the cross-colours
which make up the panorama of life, it is easy to persuade us
that to-morrow we shall be back again in chains, for we have
enjoyed but an imaginary liberty. Then, under happier circum-
stances, we see how the miracle is a simple reality — that we
have in very deed escaped perils which at one time seemed to be
insurmountable, and that our escape is due entirely to the exercise
of the almightiness of God. It is remarkable how under such
circumstances we unconsciously magnify our own importance in
the universe. We do not mean to be ostentatious and proud
when we declare that God has exerted himself specially on our
behalf, and has indeed himself been disquieted until our comfort
was restored and established. The Psalmist speaks here as if
he were the sole object of the Lord's care, and as if the Infinite
took delight only in his well-being and prosperity. It is un-
fortunately possible also to imagine on the part of the Lord
a special contempt for the enemies of whom we are ourselves
afraid. It is impossible for us to think that God can be friendly
to men who are unfriendly to us. We thus, without intention
and certainly without words, accuse God of invidiousness and
partiality. There is great need for care in this direction, lest we
grow in spiritual self-sufficiency and in the uncertain security of
irrational and presumptuous pride. Rather let us think that if
men have been our enemies they may have had some reason for
their hostility, and let us diligently cross-examine ourselves to
find out how far their opposition has been justified by something
wrong within our own nature. It is lawful to learn from an
enemy, and it is lawful for us to occupy the enemy's standpoint
in endeavouring to form a true estimate of ourselves.
156 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xviii.
In this psalm we have an outline of David's conception of God.
Some of the expressions are marvellously penetrating and mar-
vellously beautiful. What can be sweeter than such words as
these ? —
"With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright
man thou wilt shew thyself upright; with the pure thou wilt shew thyself
pure ; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward " (vers. 25, 26).
In the thirty-fifth verse the Psalmist uses an expression which
has comforted many a spirit and explained satisfactorily many a
sacred experience, — " thy gentleness hath made me great." This
word gentleness has been translated "meekness," and has been
taken as pointing to him who said, "I am meek and lowly."
The meaning would seem to be that we owe our stability and
enlargement to the forbearance of God. If he had been only all-
mighty and all-righteous he would have crushed us and carried
us away in a storm of derision because of our falsehood and
vanity and selfishness. But he has carefully surrounded us so.
that we might have an opportunity to grow, become strong, and
to mature our life in all .acceptable fruitfulness. We owe all that
is best and truest in ourselves, not to a culture we have either
originated or conducted, but to the gentleness or forbearance of
God, who has spared us and enabled us to turn to advantage all
the blessings of his providence. In such verses as these we
come upon a distinct and unchangeable philosophy. God is to us
what we are to God. Wherein we are pure, we see the holiness
of the Father; and wherein we are merciful, we share the divine
compassion. We thus become as it were interpreters and
reflectors of the divine nature. It would seem as if we could
only know God according to the limit and quality of our own
spirit. We must find the unknown through the known, the
divine through the human, and make time itself into a symbol of
eternity. Terrible is the thought, yet full also of joy, that man
is the best interpreter of God. Whatever we may see of him in
the works of so-called " nature " — their variety, their vastness,
their simplicity, and their security — we see more of him in the
spirit, the capability, and the growth of a little child. Looking in
this direction for parables and illustrations of the divine nature,
we feel how possibly true it may be that man was created in
the image and likeness of God. We see also how true it is that
Psalm xviii.] GLORIFIED PROVIDENCE. 157
human gentleness conduces to human growth and social security.
We owe next to nothing to violence. Mere strength may be
devoted to purposes of devastation, but pity, love, forbearance,
gentleness, of necessity conduce towards preservation, establish-
ment, and security.
Whilst this whole psalm may be taken as poetry based upon
history so far as David is concerned, it may be taken as literally
true concerning David's Lord. Jesus Christ also had his great
agony : there was a time when the sorrows of death compassed
him, and the floods of ungodly men made him afraid : there was
a time when the sorrows of hell compassed him about, and the
snares of death suddenly seized upon him. Out of all this agony
he came more than conqueror. The heavens darkened, the earth
trembled, the rocks were rent, the veil of the temple was thrown
down, and out of the darkness of Calvary there dawned the
morning of the world. All these phenomena are now in process
in the providence of God. Still darkness is the secret place of
the Almighty, and the pavilion of the Eternal is in dark waters
and thick clouds of the skies. Still God is in the midst of the
battles of the world, and is invisibly reigning over all the tumult
and fierceness of carnal men and ambitious empires. Things are
working together — mysteriously but certainly — and the end of
the co-operation will be the establishment of the Cross and
kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ. The time will come when
the whole earth will be filled with the glory of God. As for his
enemies, Jesus Christ will beat them small as the dust before the
wind, and his hand shall be upon their necks that he may destroy
them. If men will not fall upon the stone and be broken, the
stone will fall upon them and grind them to powder. Jesus
Christ is yet to give thanks unto the Lord among the heathen,
and sing praises unto his name in the uttermost parts of the
earth. All this it may be difficult to understand as a mere matter
of verbal criticism, but the heart knows it to be true, and rejoices
in the promise of millennial light and millennial peace.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, thou hast made us, and not we ourselves. We are the off-
spring of the living God. In God we live and move and have our beirg.
This is our joy, because this is our strength ; and this is our terror, because
herein is found the beginning of our responsibility and our judgment. Thou
knowest what we are, what we can do, how many talents thou hast
entrusted to us, and with how many opportunities thou hast enriched our
period of probation ; so if we are not faithful we cannot evade thee ; if we fail
to seize the passing time and say, Behold, we knew it not as a season sent
from heaven, thy judgment will be just. Inasmuch as we live in thee, may
we draw our law from thee, and walk by it steadfastly, thankfully, in growing
delight of obedience ; rejoicing exceedingly that we are not called upon to
make a law for ourselves, but to read and to realize the statutes written by
thine own finger. May we inquire for thy revelation, and read it with eager-
ness, and hide it in our hearts, and know it to be sweeter than honey, yea than
the honeycomb — the very droppings of the comb, the sweetest of the sweet-
ness. Thus may our life be ordered from on high, and be itself a revelation
to other men of what the soul can be and do by being consciously in the
living Christ and lovingly serving him who is the Head of Humanity. Thou
hast made us apparently for a day only: our breath is in our nostrils; we
droop and die ; thou changest our countenance and sendest us away. Yet
it cannot be for a day only that thou hast made us : thy purpose is greater,
thy purpose is boundless. Help us to believe, therefore, that there is a life
in reserve, a sphere yet to be revealed, an opportunity j'et to be disclosed.
May we live in the light of that further day, that brighter day, and abide
in the joy and hope of that immortality which is in Christ Jesus — a living
heaven, a living service, a service that knows no end nor weariness. Whilst
we are looking forward to that higher sphere, that wider nobler life, may we
remember that there are but twelve hours in this little day of earth, and
diligently improve every one of them by being industrious in the service of
the living God. Teach us what we ought to do, and teach us how to do it,
that with simplicity, fidelity, and godly sincerity we may execute our mission
upon earth, and thus become prepared for the greater mission now unknown.
We pray thee to have pity upon us in that we are unworthy of thy love :
we have broken thy law, we have stained thy name, we have wandered far
from the right line ; but thou lovest us nevertheless — yea, thou dost yearn
over us with fatherly anxiety ; thou dost listen for our coming home, thou
art watching our return : therein thou dost show thy love, thy pity, thine
exceeding care. All this we know in Christ Jesus thy Son. He left the
ninety-and-nine and came after that which was lost, until he found it : the
Son of ma^ came to seek and to save that which was lost. Lord, we were
Psalm xix.] A GRAND PICTURE OF NATURML
lost, but by Christ we have been found ; we have entered so far into the joy
of our Lord as to know the rapture of conscious forgiveness. Now bind us
to the Cross of Christ by which we have been saved ; deliver us from all sin,
darkness, fear, and take away from us the spirit that would apostatise us,
luring us by subtler temptations to still deeper ruin. And that this may be
so, let thy word dwell in us richly, and thy Holy Spirit never forsake us, and
thy grace become magnified towards us in the proportion of our need. It
is not enough that thou dost expel the evil ; thou wilt also implant and
cultivate the good, and increase it until there is no room in us for evil, as
there is no inclination for it. The Lord give us the sobriety of veneration,
the joy of hope, the real blessedness of pardoned souls. The Lord build his
temple within us, and dwell therein as in a chosen place. Give to every
man a special revelation of truth, and an individual assurance of acceptance.
Thus may blessing be individualised and multiplied, and abundantly and
eternally increased. Amen.
Psalm xix.
[Note. — This is universally regarded as one of the most profound and
affecting of David's compositions. Bacon says, "The heavens declare the
glory of God, but not his will." God's will can only be known by his law.
A marked difference between the style of the two portions of the psalm has
been pointed out. The former portion is more varied in cadence, whilst the
latter is more precise and condensed, nevertheless a pervading harmony
has been recognised by the severest critics. It has been well said that the
placing of these two ideas side by side is full of beauty and interest. To
study nature and law is to cover the whole scope of pious education.]
A GRAND PICTURE OF NATURE.
READ the first verse, " The heavens are telling," rather than
"The heavens declare." This form of expression keeps
up the music of the remainder of the paragraph in the psalm
referring to heavenly glory. "The heavens are telling" — are
now speaking; are not merely showing, as upon an infinite
diagram, the glory of God, but are talking about it, repeating it
in words which the soul can hear, and are eternally engaged in
preaching the great gospel of beneficent nature. " The heavens
are telling." Which heavens ? Not only is the word "heavens"
grammatically plural, but suggestively a great host. There are
many heavens. To which of the multitude innumerable does
the rapturous poet refer ? The heayens of Day ? They are all
whiteness, beautiful in glory ; sometimes without a cloud, or
vapour, or stain of anything earthly — an infinite purity of light;
a great, holy, celestial summer. When the poet, touching us, as
if to call us to an attitude of attention, says, "The heavens are
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xix.
telling the glory of God," it is perfectly easy for us to enter into
his high mood, and to return a responsive assurance that we hear
the music and catch the tones of the ineffable eloquence. He has
strained nothing; he has reached the word appropriate to the
occasion ; in associating the name of the Lord with glory so vast,
so pure, he has not broken in upon any true sense of proportion,
or violated any noble instinct of veneration. " The heavens are
telling." Which heavens ? The heavens of Night ? Night has
a glory all her own. She seems as if sometimes trying to keep
the glory from us, so that we see but little shining glints of it —
sparkles, and twinkles, and flashes of a hidden splendour. Yet
she has a pride of her own — a skilful way of throwing back the
robe and letting us see that there is much beyond. She will also
condescend to be looked at in a way which would appear to have
been divinely appointed — "through a glass darkly," a glass that
reveals somewhat of distance, size, radiance, capacity, but there
is no stopping-place in all the upward vista : where we pause it
is simpl}' for want of vision ; the glory does not end where the
eyesight fails. If, when conscious that there is universe beyond
universe, in endless aspect, in infinite multiplication, the poet
shall say, " The heavens are telling the glory of God," we should
interrupt his song and say, " Let it be louder ; " or, " Let us
unite with thee in praising the majesty of light." Which
heavens? The Oriental? They are quite different from the
Occidental heavens. Dwellers in the western and northern lands
do not see so many " patines of bright gold " as are seen by the
Oriental gazer : the whole arch is ablaze with a white flame,
or alive with innumerable eyes, as if all the galleries of heaven
were thronged with angel spectators, looking down to see this
earth, on which such tragedies divine have been begun, continued,
and completed. We may, therefore, well ask, Which heavens ?
Every man has a heaven of his own. Blessed be God, it is
possible to look upon the heavens and admire them without
understanding their merely astronomical mechanism. The mere
astronomer does not see the heavens. He is but a tabulist,
keeping pace with himself in whole numbers and decimals, long
lines of logarithms and other figures ; he has always ink enough
to put down what he has seen. The poet begins where the mere
astronomer ends. He sees the genius of the whole. He speaks
Psalm xix.] A GRAND PICTURE OF NATURE. i6i
about it in language worthy of the altar at which his praise is
kindled. The humblest observer may read "the glory of God"
in the heavens. This is a volume God has published for all
the race ; this revelation was not done in a corner. We have to
inquire for a book, to ascertain upon what terms it can be had,
and to ask for assistance in interpreting its hardest w^ords ;
but the great nature-book, the heaven-page, the star-syllables —
behold, all is free to the eye that can look and read. Do not let
us imagine the heavens are not to be understood until the names
of the stars are known. . The stars have no names ! We have
degraded them by attaching appellations to them. The stars
would not know themselves by the names we give them. Look
beyond the name, the arithmetic, the size, into the spiritual
meaning of all the balance and harmony and music, and thus
acknowledge that "the heavens are telling the glory of God."
It is beautiful to note how soon the Psalmist institutes a com-
parison between man and nature — man and God. At first we
think he is going to be wholly abstract, but an irresistible impulse,
divinely started, soon draws him towards the making of compari-
sons as between the outward and the inward, the material and
the spiritual, and thus to find in nature and in man a co-
operative parable, nature having one part, man having the
other part, and both the parts brought together to complete the
significance. Thus the Psalmist says, " The sun, which is as a
bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong
man to run a race " (vers. 4, 5). This is a figure we cannot under-
stand : hence my reference to the Oriental lands. The sun never
plays the bridegroom part in our dull skies. He comes slowly.
Sometimes he comes hardly at all, or looks upon the earth as if
in a spirit of offence, standing back with more or less of haughty
reserve and neglect. Sometimes he comes lingeringly : so we
have here a dawn, a time when the sun is apparently beginning
to come, or sending forth intimations that perhaps he will come
in a given space of time. It is otherwise with the Orient : there
the coming of the sun is like the bursting forth of a man from
behind the curtains, which he has suddenly dashed aside, and
the man is in full vigour and fire before we were aware of his
intention to appear. Hence the difference of poetry as between
VOL. XII. II
1 62 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xix.
Oriental and Western nations. The Oriental reader could not
understand English poetry about the coming of the sun — the
earth waiting for him ; nor could he understand our references
to the uncertainty of the coming of the sun : the only sun he
knows anything about leaps, starts suddenly with a dash, and
illumes and transfigures the earth, so lately night-burdened,
darkened with gloom. .It is the same sun, but it is not the same
atmosphere. Imagine the Orient and the Occident establishing
competing sects, each upholding its own view of the sun, and
each calhng the other heterodox! The folly would be patenc;
the antagonism would be absurd. Yet this is the very thing
that is done amongst Christian thinkers : the one thing forgotten
is that the sun is the same sun, but the intermediate conditions
are not the same. We are battling about the atmosphere, and
forgetting the eternal steadfastness of the sun. Every man has
a sun of his own — a faith of his own — a God more patent to
himself than to any other man. There are as many religions,
in the sense of aspects of religions, as there are men. It is an
error to suppose that we all see the same aspect of God : but
what we have to rejoice in is that all the aspects make up the
one God. Were an Eastern poet to contend that Shakespeare
had never seen the sun, we should not be able to estimate his
criticism ; perhaps we might even call him a fanatic ; but when
this very same principle comes into religious thinking, then we
have society split up into sects, denominations, parties, decorated
with especial banners, and degraded by especial mottoes. God
is the same, Christ the same, truth the same, but the revelation
is different, because of atmospheric peculiarity, because of indivi-
dual temperament, training, opportunity for seeing things, and
enlargement of mind. Better to magnify the unity of the sun,
the eternal majesty of the light, than to be finding one another
wrong upon grounds atmospheric, and because of conditions
which do not hold good in equal degree in any two instances.
" Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard " (vers. 2, 3).
The meaning is that the heavens use no words. Where words
have been used man has been exercising his little invention in
the questionable science of nomenclature. The text should read :
There is no speech, there is no language, their voice is not
Psalm xix.] A GRAND PICTURE OF NATURE. 163
heard. This is a great silent testimony. This is a spectacle to
be looked at, not a message to be criticised. Where the message
is delivered, criticism begins. Hence we have remarks upon
" manner." To such awful depths of religious disgrace have
we sunk ! Sometimes we stumble at the message because we
are unappreciative of the manner ; then we are not earnest ;
we are not only foolish, we are dead men ; not only dead men,
but incurable fools. God, therefore, has used silent ministers
to assist the great vocal ministry of exposition and persuasion.
The heavens are inaudible in all their speech, yet intelligible.
We can actually put into words all the appeals made by Night,
if we look reverently and consider devoutly what is revealed
on the blue page of the sky. A graphic writer of our own time
has well said : "The greatest objects in nature are the stillest :
the ocean has a voice, the sun is dumb in his courts of praise ;
the forests murmur, the constellations speak not. Aaron spoke ;
Moses' face but shone. Sweetly might the high priest discourse,
but the Urim and the Thummim, the blazing stones upon his
breast, flashed forth a meaning deeper and diviner far."
" What though in solemn silence all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball;
What though no real voice nor sound,
Amid their radiant orbs be found;
In Reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine, —
The Hand that made us is Divine."
" Day unto day uttereth " — literally, pours forth like a fountain.
" Night unto night sheweth " — literally, breathes out, tells what
it has to tell to the night that is coming on. So there is an
astronomic tradition, a long-continued serial story, written in
starry nights and sunny days. What talks the heavens have
to one another 1 How the dying day tells to the day unborn
its tale of experience — what it has seen, what varieties of land-
scape, what mysteries of life, what tragedies of woe ! So the
moon tells nightly to the listening earth what she has to say.
These starry talkers have passwords of their own : they speak
in the cypher of light ; there is no word, no sound, no speech,
no language. Poor crippled language would be of no use in
that high converse. Language is always a difficulty, a snare,
1 64 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xix.
a temptation, an inconvenient convenience. It brings us into
all our troubles : it is M/hen we speak that we create heterodoxies :
could we but be silent, dumbly good — could we look our prayers
and cause o\xx face to shine with our benevolence, and our hand
do a quiet work of beneficence, how happy would the world
be ! Words do not mean the same thing to any two men ; they
may be accepted for momentary uses and for commercial pur-
poses, but when it becomes a matter of life and death, time and
eternity, truth and error, words are base counterfeits that should
be nailed to the counter of creation as things by which a false
commerce has been kept up amongst earnest and ardent men.
Blessed be God for the silent testimony, for the radiant character,
for the eloquent service. All history is silent; it is only the
immediate day that chatters and talks and fusses about its little
affairs. Yet the dead centuries are eloquent ; the characters
are all gone : the warriors are dead and buried, the orators
have culminated their eloquence in the silence of death, the great
solemn past is like a banquet-hall deserted ; but it is eloquent,
instructive, silently monitorial. Why do we speak of our little
affairs? They have not yet come into shape; not for one
hundred years may they be talked about in sober wisdom and
with clear, calm judgment. Let us talk of things that happened
long ago : our fathers told us what wondrous things the Lord did
in their times. Silent, history — great, sad, melancholy, impartial
history — the spirit of the past should govern the unrest and the
tumult of the present.
Now there is a sudden turn in the psalm; yet there is no
lowering of its dignity.
" The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul : the testimony of
the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are
right, rejoicing the heart : the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlight-
ening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever: the
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether" (vers. 7-9).
Some have thought that another author wrote the concluding
portions of the psalm. Why? Surely not. This man who
spoke so rapturously about nature never could have left the
subject there. He was not a mere nature-worshipper. He so
looked at nature as to convince himself that somewhere there
was something yet richer, more of the quality of God. We do
Psalm xix.] A GRAND PICTURE OF NATURE. 165
make such inferences in general life — why not in matters religious ?
A great French astronomer said — a long time before he made
the discovery : Such and such are the palpitations from this
quarter of the heavens, that there must be another planet not
far. That other planet had never been discovered, but there
were such signs in the heavens as could be wrought only by
the revolutions and the light of some tremendous body. The
astronomer kept his glass well to his eye, and watched with the
patience of love and with the sobriety of wisdom, and in due
time the great planet came within the field of the glass. At
that same time a great English discoverer had been directing
his eye in the same quarter; the discovery was made almost
simultaneously — as nearly all great discoveries are. It is
wonderful how God confirms things by the mouth of two or
three witnesses, so that men in various lands, and speaking
various languages, come always at the same point to the sam.e
conclusion. David, looking upon all the stellar host, and all the
solar day, said, "There is more : there is a law ; there is a nearer
approximation to mind than mere stars can ever make; watch,
and listen, and pray," He found a " law," a " statute," a
"testimony," a "commandment." There is one peculiarity
about these verses which ought to be clearly noted — namely,
every word can be proved to be either true or false. They
expose themselves to an immediate practical test. "The law
of the Lord is perfect." Had that been a phrase complete in
itself, it might have admitted of discussion, but it is only part
of a sentence, the remainder being " converting the soul." There
we come upon ground which can be tested. Does the law of
the Lord convert the soul ? Put it thus : When the law of
the Lord enters into a man's nature, is he the same man in his
temper, spirit, hopes, anticipations ? Does he talk the same
earthly language ? Is he turned right round from east to west?
Questions so simple admit of being answered with practical
replies. It is not difficult to see a parallel between the action
of the heavens upon the earth and the action of the law upon
human nature. Does the sun restore the earth ? Does the
earth give signs of gladness because the sun has come ? Does
she answer his light with things green and beautiful, with songs
a thousand- voiced, toned in every pitch of music and eloquence ?
1 66 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xix.
Does she seem to make haste to show him all she has ? When
she makes her garden she seems to be making it for the sun
rather than for the owner or the gardener. The earth, in her
strong summer mood, is a reply to the sun. As surely as such
is the case is it that man, affected by the law, the testimony,
the statute, the commandment of the Lord, is restored, beautified,
enriched, and brought to his true and very self as God meant
him to be. These are not matters that admit of discussion : we
ourselves are the living witnesses. Where, then, is there any
place for wordy argument — long and detailed discussion ? The
whole matter is settled on practical grounds. There never was
a man who received the law of the Lord into his heart and
obeyed it who did not instantly say that he was a new man —
that he was " born again." Failing this proof of regeneration,
we are at liberty to deny that he has ever known the law or
ever received it into his spirit.
So the psalm is a grand picture of nature, and a grand recogni-
tion of revelation ; still, it is incomplete : it wants another touch.
What can we have more than nature and revelation ? We can
have experience. That is what the Psalmist finally supplies.
He begins to mourn and complain, and to feel his own infirmity,
and to desire divine sympathy and direction. " Cleanse thou
me from secret faults " — thou who didst make the all-redeeming
sun. " Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins "
— O thou that dost hold the great steeds of fire in leashes that
cannot be broken. " Let the w^ords of my mouth, and the
meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, my
strength, and my redeemer " — then I shall join the choral har-
monies of creation ; mine shall not be the one discordant note in
creation's infinite anthem ; then all thy works shall praise Thee.
" Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins," — literally,
from arrogant men — men who seeing me above them, below them,
around them, will not be law-burdened themselves ; keep me in
the society of the humble, the modest, the lowly-minded. To the
babe thou wilt reveal thyself, to the little child thou wilt shew
thy face ; Lord, keep me back from boasting, blustering, arrogant
men — licentious fools who would burst thy limits and try to be
gods themselves.
PRAYER
Almighty God, thy sanctuary is on high ; it is filled with angels ; it is the
home of the blessed ; from it thou dost behold the children of men, and
thou dost send help, thou loving Father, to those who put their trust in
thee. The tabernacle of God is with men upon the earth ; thy house is
near our dwelling-places. Thou wilt send us a portion from thy table
that our hunger may be satisfied ; thou wilt number us amongst thy guests,
and cause us to eat and drink abundantly at thy table. Thou dost connect
all the worlds, mysteriously and lovingly, so that we speak of the whole
family in heaven and on earth. Thou art so teaching us the mystery of
life, and revealing to us its infinite glory, that now there is no more
distance, there is no night, there is no sea, there is no need of the candle
or of the sun to show things as they are ; we are now citizens of heaven,
companions of the angels, associates with the pure and the blessed ; — this
is the miracle of the Holy Ghost wrought within us, little by little, like
a dawning, expanding, growing day. Once we were blind, now we see ;
once we thought heaven was above the sky — a beauteous image indeed to
our child-mind — but now it is within us, if so be we love God in Christ
Jesus and try to serve him with all simplicity and earnestness ; once we
thought of the dead as gone away from us, now they are no longer dead :
they have risen in our love and thought, they are the chief impulses of our
life, they encourage us, bless us, enrich us : verily they live more to-day
than when we could put our hands in theirs and look Ihem in the face.
Thou art changing all things : the water is becoming wine, the light is
becoming heaven, the summer is paradise restored. Thou art giving us
enlargement of mind, far-extendedness of vision ; so we are no longer
humbled by the things that die and that press upon us with rude urgency ;
we trample them under foot, and stand upon them as upon a hill which only
helps us to see the further. We bless thee for all these upliftings, enlarge-
ments, and liberations of mind ; thou hast made us thy freemen, invested
us with a glorious liberty, and entrusted us with a sacred promise. We
come to the house of the Lord to receive help. The way of the week is
often crooked : its days are so many difficulties, its hours are multiplied
temptations, all its engagements so flatter us, or lure us, or tempt us, that
we may forget the sanctuary of God ; but we come to the house of the
Living One that we may ourselves live more abundantly— yea, be filled
with life, so much so that there shall be no death in us ; then we will step
down into the week and rule it, command it, sanctify it by the energy of
the indwelling Spirit. For all thine help we bless thee : it has turned night
into day, it has made for us pools — yea, and springing fountains — in the
wilderness ; it has kept back the enemy ; it has given us a place of security,
l68 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xx.
and therefore an opportunity of growth. Bless the Lord, magnify him ; yea,
praise him with many instruments and with unanimous voice and unbroken
love for his infinite kindness, his pity, and his care. 'Help us to live worthy
of thy call. We cannot do so: every day we fall; we eat the forbidden
tree, we listen to tempting voices, we know that we have done the wrong.
Yet sometimes thou dost bid us fear not, for we are in a place of darkness
that leads to a place of light ; if so be we cling to thee, and hope on, and
live on, all this dense darkness shall be dissolved, and we shall stand in the
white morning, beautiful with all heaven's colour and rich with a thousand
promises. We commend one another to thy care. This is the great
blessing, this is the true friendship, that soul should pray for soul, and life
should give life into the Eternal Hands. For all thy wealth of love we bless
thee : we have seen it at home, we have seen it in the market-place, we
have seen it in the cemetery — everywhere thy love is present, had we
but eyes to see. Lord, open our eyes ! Jesus, Son of David, that we may
receive our sight is our heart's cry to thy pity. Whilst we are here in this
place of shadow and gloom and trial, help us to work steadily, bravely
hopefully ; may we not mourn as the pagans do, falling down with heathenish
fear in the day of adversity^'iu that day make us strong, that in its darkness
we may illustrate the infinitude of thy grace and the fulness of thy satis-
factions. Direct all men who are in perplexity, comfort all who are in
sorrow, give rest to those who are weary, too weary to pray ; and give
comfort of a special kind to those whose griefs are of the heart, of the
spirit, which cannot well be spoken, and yet which tear the soul and wound
it, and fill it with despair. The Lord be with our loved ones everywhere
— with the boj' that left us yesterday, the child who faced the world for the
first time recently, the friend who said good-bye that he might try the sea,
and the traveller who has gone far away to make honest bread. Be with
those from whom we are necessarily parted, and from whom we would
never be parted a moment if we could help it. Be with those whom we
shall never see upon the earth again ; give them joy in sorrow, triumph '
in the hour and article of death, and may they have the promise and the
hope of re-union, of fellowship eternal. The Lord bless the whole eirth —
all its nationalities and peoples, its tongues and languages. The Lord look
upon all men who are in high power — on thrones, in primacies, leading the
influence of the world ; the Lord grant to such humbleness of mind, together
with increasing insight, more religious reverence, and deeper interest in
the common weal. The Lord hear us in all these things, and all the things
which we ought to speak of, or think of, in our love; and send a plentiful
answer from his sanctuary, and especially assure us, through our Lord
Jesus Christ, Prince of Peace, Lord of Life, Saviour of the world, Priest of
the universe, of the forgiveness of our sins, and our adoption into the
spiritual family of God. Amen.
Psalm XX.
[Note. — This is supposed to be a relic of the ancient liturgy, an antiphonal
Temple hymn ; the assembled congregation sings one part, and the priest
the other, whilst the king is offering sacrifice in view of the struggle gaainst
Psalm XX.] SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. i6g
the formidable hosts of heathenism. It has been supposed that the psalm
was composed in Asa's reign. The simple grandeur of the style, and the
cordial expression of trust in the living God, seem to point to the date as
the time of David. The psalm is represented as a noble embodiment of the
conviction that in the opinion of the heroes of Israel right is might.]
SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE.
THIS psalm is often used at coronations. It fixes itself the
occasions on which it may be used fittingly and usefully.
This is a psalm which will not fit into every day or every set of
circumstances ; this bird of song will only sing in the darkness.
This is a fit speech for a congregation to make to a minister who
is in sorrow or stress of any kind. It is also a fit speech to
make to any Christian soul who is feeling the darkness and
burdensomeness of life. Under all such circumstances the words
have a right to be heard ; no apology is needed for introducing
them. They seem to come up from eternity, clothed with
heavenly dignity, and breathing celestial music, and they claim,
without any assertion in words (which is the poorest of all
claims), a right to be heard. Beside this, no heart in such
circumstances can decline their aid. The heart itself is a witness
to inspiration. Why torture the naked intellectual faculties to
say anything about inspiration when they know nothing about
it ? It is asking those to speak a language who never heard of
it, or asking men to sing who have no sense of music. It is the
heart that must determine these great questions ; and never was
there a heart in sorrow that knew anything of serious and eternal
things that did not at once recognise these words as a special and
direct message from the very Soul of the universe. " My sheep
know my voice." That is a much larger doctrine than it might
at first sight seem to be : being in harmony with God, we know
everything that God says ; that is to say, on hearing it we can at
once decide whether God ever said that or not, A marvellous
faculty is set within us, which we describe by the faculty of
discrimination — a faculty which knows noise from music, right
from wrong, the noble from the mean. A child has this faculty
of discernment : " There is a spirit in man." We differ upon all
matters of mere opinion, and all matters which are limited by
words and terms and phrases ; but under all these things there is
a necessity which the religious answer alone can satisfy — a cry
i^d THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xx.
bitter with the soul's distress, to which only a religious cry can
appeal. Psalms like tEIs, therefore, are infinitely valuable be-
cause they speak the universal language. We are not careful to
inquire into their literal antiquity, or the particular circumstances
under which they were written or sung ; they belong to all
climes, to all languages, to all suffering hearts, conscious of a
wish to be and to do that which is right. It is this that gives
the Bible its place in history and its influence in human life : it
belongs to no nationality ; it speaks no dialect ; it is a great
mighty rushing wind from heaven, belonging to all the race and
to all the ages with royal and divine impartiality.
" In the day of trouble." Have we heard of that day ? is it
a day in some exhausted calendar ? is this an ancient phrase
which needs to be interpreted to us by men cunning in the use
of language and in the history of terms ? It might have been
spoken in our own tongue: we might ourselves have spoken it.
So criticism has no place here : only sympathy has a right to
utter these words ; they would perish under a process of ety-
mological vivisection ; they bring with them healing, comfort,
release, and contentment when spoken by the voice of sympathy.
Is the day of trouble a whole day — twelve hours long ? Is it a
day that cannot be distinguished from night ? and does it run
through the whole circle of four-and-twenty hours ? Is it a day
of that kind at all ? In some instances, is it not a life-day,
beginning with the first cry of infancy, concluding with the final
sigh of old age ? Is it a day all darkness, without any rent in
the cloud, without any hint of light beyond the infinite burden
of gloom ? Whatever it is, it is provided for ; it is recognised
as a solemn fact in human life, and it is provided for by the
grace and love of the eternal God. He knows every hour of
the day — precisely how the day is made up; he knows the
pulse-beat of every moment ; he is a God nigh at hand ; so that
we have no sorrow to tell him by way of information, but only
sorrow to relate, that with it we may sing some hymn to his
grace. The whole world is made kin by this opening expression.
There is no human face, rightly read, that has not in it fines
of sorrow — peculiar, mystic writing of long endurance, keen dis-
aopointment, hope deferred, mortification of soul unuttered in
Psalm XX.] SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 171
speech, but graved as with an iron tool upon the soul and the
countenance. Who are these that flee as doves to their windows ?
They are the souls in sorrow that are fleeing to the twentieth
psalm. The air is quite blackened with them ; they fly in one
direction, and swiftly they flap their wings, as with the energy
of despair — towards this psalm of comfort. A book filled with
words of this kind holds its own, not as the result of some great
battle in criticism, but as the result of speaking deeper words
to the human heart than ever were spoken to it by any other voice.
The trouble is dignified by the very kind of help it needs :
"The name of the God of Jacob defend thee; send thee help from the
sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion" (vers. I, 2).
Then this is no skin-wound ; this sorrow is not a passing tear;
this bitterness and fret and wear of life cannot be ranked as a
mere chafing of sensibilities. Learn the dignity of the woe from
the dignity of the Physician who alone can cure it : — " The Lord
hear thee." There are speeches which men cannot hear ; at
east, though they make some appeal to the outward hearing, the
speeches themselves are not heard in all the tones of their
unutterable meaning. Here we often lack the faculty of dis-
crimination, for we know not one sorrow from another, but
include all human distress under some common appellation. If
only God can cure the sorrow it must be of a peculiar kind ; and
if he will condescend to cure it there must be something in it
which is not in any common form of grief. This is heart-woe ;
this is anguish in the very seat of life ; this is mortal sorrow.
"A wounded spirit who can bear?" Who can look into the
heart, or dare, but God ? We are physicians to each other up
to a given point : we can speak to one another about the medicine,
we can never provide it ; or we can dwell with delighted gratitude .
upon the remedies it has wrought out, the cures it has effected,
but we cannot ourselves administer it. It is something to be
able to name it, to point to it, to call attention to it, to cause the
mind itself to be awakened in the direction of its origin ; but God
himself alone can, so to say, open this bottle, and cause the
healing drops to follow one another in the right number, and
present the draught to those who die for want of it. It is well
thus, and otherwise, often to be shut up to God. It is a grand
172 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xx.
religious education to be above the reach of man and to be
enclosed within the very solitude of God. They are little
sorrows, merely physical tears, which can be treated by human
voices and by human hands ; they are the great agonies that will
not, and cannot, be touched by any fingers but God's. At the
last we may have some hint of the meaning of this ; for we read
that in the final summing up of earth's probation and life's
discipline God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes. They
are not shed of themselves ; they are not dropped out of the eye-
wells by any action of the law of gravitation : they are removed
by the hand divine, and when God shuts no man can open.
Nor can we know what true joy is until we have known what
this true sorrow is. We cannot be converted until we have been
distressed, impoverished, rendered utterly self-helpless, and have
had a face-to-face interview with God in agony — God in Christ.
It is a sophism of the most dangerous kind to suppose that men
can fall asleep sinners and awaken saints; that by some mysterious
and happy transition people who have been committing sin begin
to pray, and hence on are clothed in white and are fit for the
companionship of angels. Infinite may be the differences as be-
tween one experience and another, but somewhere there is a
point which can best be described by the word agony — a point of
surrender, a point at which self is laid down, nailed to the Cross,
and in the strength of Christ's grace abandoned in purpose and
in love for ever. This would no doubt reduce very much the
number of nominal Christians, but such a reduction would be no
loss to Christ. The Christian cause is burdened by those who
know nothing about it. The Church can meet every enemy but
the enemy of nominal consent and assent. Who, then, can be
saved ? That is a question to which there is no answer possible
in words. The reply can only be found in an experience that
never can be written, that can be but dimly and faintly hinted at
by the most vivid and redundant eloquence.
Now the tone changes, as is customary in the Psalms. From
the fifth verse — especially from the sixth verse — the whole tone
Vises into one of confidence and triumph. The morning was
"^diiU, the evening was fine. So have we seen it in life. We
have often been afraid of the morning too bright; we have said,
Psalm XX.] SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE, 173
" It is too bright to last." Concerning some houses we say to
their occupants, " You do not get the morning sun here, do
you ? " and the reply has been, " No : here we do not get the
morning sun, but soon after midday the room is filled with light;
we see beautiful sunsets ; we have long, warm afternoons and
eventides." That may be best. Has it not been a sort of
tragical experience to us that we have seen so many who had
their sunshine only in the morning ? They laughed, as was
natural ; they danced for very rapture of soul, which was not
improper ; but have we not known, as we saw this demonstra-
tion of delight, that probably the day would darken towards
afternoon ? We have seen the young minister in sudden popu-
larity, developed all at once, quite the growth of one little hour
— how triumphant ! how delighted by popular acclamation ! how
highly-fed with public appreciation ! Presently the brightness
has vanished, and in the obscurity of a cloudy afterday the idol
has been forgotten. Have we not seen men struggling in the
morning when there was no light upon their window, raising
themselves for a moment's relaxation, sighing — not the expira-
tion of weakness, but a sigh that means there is still latent
strength which shall be developed ? Have we not seen them
patiently working, confidently keeping on, pressing forward, per-
severing with that persistence which is itself a kind of inspiration
— when lo ! one slanting beam came to the workshop ; then every
moment after the beam broadened and made room for other
beams, and the afternoon was bright, and at eventide there was
light ? It is sad when people have all their good fortune in the
beginning of life. It is pitiable to see a man starting life with
many thousand pounds, and with the world's key in his hand,
opening what doors he pleases. It is a sad sight to see a well-
dressed pampered child. Blessed are they who have had their
clouds in the mornpg, and whose windows look westward, and
catch the afternoon light, and have a great blaze of glory at the
time of the setting sun. Those of you who are cursed with
prosperity in the beginning of life should voluntarily renounce
it. They are the wise men, and will eventually be the^ happy
men, who have set their fortune aside and gone to live in the ,
most destitute parts of the metropolis, that they might divide
the burdens which weaker men are carrying.
X74 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xx.
The Psalmist says, " Now know I " (ver. 6). There comes a
point of knowledge in the spiritual education of the soul. For
a long time the soul knows nothing, can explain nothing, is
groping after everything, but is quite sure that it is groping in
the right direction. Then there comes a point of positive know-
ledge— a birthday — a day never to be forgotten. Such days
there are in intellectual illumination. The scholar, opening his
book, knows nothing ; the first few pages are weary reading ;
he asks if he may not omit a good many of the pages, but he
is told that not a single word is to be omitted. The reward is
not on the first page ; it begins about the middle of the book,
but only begins to those who have carefully read every word up
to that point ; then for the first time the reader sees one beam.
Now his interest in the book deepens ; every page becomes an
enjoyment, and he is only regretful when the last page is
reached. We know the meaning of this kind of illumination in
the acquisition of languages. For a long time we seem to be
speaking incoherently, even foohshly ; the sounds are so unusual
to our own ears that when we say them aloud to any listener
we smile, as if we had made a possible mistake, or might be
mistaken for persons who had altogether misapprehended their
natural talent and genius. A little further on we speak, perhaps,
with a shade less hesitation ; then mingling with people who are
always speaking the language, we get into the hum and music
of the utterance, and then venture our first complete sentence,
and when it is answered as we expected it to be answered, a
great satisfaction comes into our soul, and from that point
progress is comparatively easy. These illustrations all help us
to understand some little about the religious life. When a man
first hears his own voice in prayer, it is as if it thundered. It
is a terrible thing to hear the voice the first time in prayer to
those who are naturally timid and self-obliterating. But there
is a point of knowledge. The Psalmist reached it in the sixth
verse. He felt the saving hands of God were under him and
round about him, and his confidence was grand. After this,
what would he do ? He would set up his banners — that is to
say, he would bear public testimony. There should be no doubt
about which side of the war he was on. " In the name of our
jGod we will set up our banners ; " the heathen are setting up
Psalm XX.] SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGE. 175
their banners, and unfurling their flags on every height they can
clear. " In the name of our God we will set up our banners ; '
the fact of our having a banner is nothing ; the heathen have
banners, and are not ashamed of them ; the thing to be noted
is the name in which the banner is to be set up ; they are our
banners, but it is God's name.
Now the Psalmist, being in triumph himself, passes easily into
a mood of ridicule — high intellectual taunting — when he views
the poor trusts of the world : " Some trust in chariots, and some
in horses." The chariots are of iron, the steeds are caparisoned,
the show is one of pomp, but it is only show ; the chariots shall
be broken, the horses shall be slain. " We will remember the
name of the Lord our God " — eternal name ! They who trust
in chariots and in horses " are brought down and fallen : but
we are risen, and stand upright." The end must test everything.
Viewed within given limits, there is nothing so absurd as
spiritual trust. Compared with chariots and horses, what is
spiritual trust ? — a ghostly, shadowy thing ; a praying into the
air; a calling up avenues that have no end — into heavens that
have no God. See the chariots, count the horses, watch the
gleaming steel, — that is trust. Within the limits we have alluded
to, the judgment is right. The young man who said to the
prophet. Behold all these chariots and horses ! they are coming
nearer and nearer, and thou wilt surely be crushed by the
tremendous weight, was right ; in the exercise of his physical
faculties alone he could come to no other judgment. The
prophet, quiet, serene, too powerful to be in a tumult, too
dignified to be in any haste, too sure of God to have any fear
of man, simply said, " Lord, open his eyes " ; and the Lord
opened the eyes of the young man, and behold, the mountain
was alive with angels, with chariots of fire, with the horses of
Omnipotence. We are only afraid when we are blind. What
we want is open vision, clear eyesight, a proper estimate of
realities, and not appearances ; so when Jesus passeth by we
will say, when he says to us. What is your petition ? — Lord,
that we might receive our sight 1
Psalm xxiii.
[Note. — Some think that this psalm was written by David in the early days
of innocence; but against this view verse 5 is quoted. Besides, it is doubted
whether any youth could have had an experience so rich and large.
Common opinion assigns the psalm to David. The images of the shepherd
watching over his flock, and of the banquet where Jehovah presides over
the just, are familiar in Hebrew poetry. It has been said that the mention
of the House of Jehovah appears to be decisive against the Davidic author-
ship. Some have suggested that if David's fortunes coloured the psalm it
must have been through the mind of some later writer. The twenty-third
Psalm stands apart in all its most tender and fascinating characteristics.
Imagination can hardly dissociate it from the royal shepherd on the hillsides
of Judah, where he studied nature so profoundly and communed so deeply
and lovingly with God.]
THE DIVINE SHEPHERD.
" The Lord is my Shepherd * " (ver. l).
IT is vital that we should define God's relation to us, and our
relation to God. Every one may have an image peculiarly
his own ; an image which most clearly typifies the divine near-
ness and care, and through which, therefore, he can see most of
God and understand him best. God is the infinite name — shep-
herd, father, healer, deliverer; these are the incarnation of it, not
in the sense of limiting it, but in the sense of focalising its glory,
and subduing it into daily use and daily comfort.
" I shall not want" (ver. l).
An indirect tribute to the earthly shepherd. Some titles are
characters as well as designations. A shepherd that allowed his
flock to want would divest himself of his character, and rank
himself with the horde of hirelings whose business it is to fleece
* If we would trace the history of the word "shepherd" as applied to
God we must refer to Gen. xlviii. 15; Gen. xlix. 24; Psalm Ixxviii. 52;
Psalm Ixxx, i ; Isa. xl. 1 1 ; Isa. Ixiii, 1 1 ; Ezek. xxxiv, ; Micah vii. 14.
Psalm xxiii.] THE DIVINE SHEPHERD. 177
the flock, and deliver it as a prey to the wolf. The assurance of
nurture has here large meaning. It may be paraphrased variously :
I am God's child, so I need not yield myself to anxiety ; I am
religious, therefore I am provided for. Or the reasoning may
start from the other and better point : God is for me, who can be
against me ? God is housekeeper, so there will be bread enough.
God reigns, the universe is safe. There is no selfishness in the
reasoning : the Psalmist is not magnifying a little personality, he
is stating the practical and universal sequence of fundamental
reasoning. The violet is not immodest when it says in its mossy
dell, The sun shines, I shall be warmed.
"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures : he leadcth me beside the
still waters " (ver. 2).
He knows what I need : he treats me according to my quality :
he proves by easily comprehended blessings that higher benefac-
tions shall not be withheld. Pasture and water are the earnest
and pledge of truth and grace. Did we know things as they are,
we would know that they are all parables, whose meaning is
spiritual. Bread is sacramental. Providence is the visible and
historical aspect of theology. If God clothe the fields, will he not
clothe the husbandmen? if he clothe the body, will he not clothe
the soul ? if he feed the flesh, will he starve the spirit ? If we
knew the earth aright we should have some understanding of
heaven.
" He restoreth my soul : he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for
his name's sake " (ver. 3).
So the sweet singer has not missed the higher significance of
his music. Already the green fields have lured him into the
sanctuary; already the "waters of comfort" have brought him to
the river of God. This is the very purpose of nature. All the
stars lead to Bethlehem. All the waters trickle to the pure river
of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of
God and of the Lamb. Oh that men were wise ! then all nature
would be but the vestibule of the sanctuary, and all providence
but the many-figured gate which opens upon the soul's store-
house. Soul-restoration is peculiarly the work of God. He
alone knows that wonderful instrument, and he only can keep
it in tune. "The inward man is renewed day by day I " Day by
VOL. XII. 12
178 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xxiii.
day the soul must be judged, re-adjusted, fed, comforted by the
Living One. The proof of renewal will be a stedfast walk in the
paths of righteousness. Morality will prove religion. Sentiment
will be crystallised in character. Is our piety rhapsody or
service ? Is our restoration a dream or a discipline ? Do we
know in our very heart of hearts that he who made the rainbow
a covenant made the Cross the only way to heaven ? These are
the questions which shock the complacency of self-satisfaction,
and bring men to penitence, confession, and prayer.
" Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil " (ver. 4).
It is indeed the valley of shadows, the valley of night. How-
ever much the expression may be softened by Hebrew etymology
and usage, we know what the valley is. It is ever before even
the youngest life. It must be traversed, and the darkest part of
it must be passed alone. Sweet mother cannot follow her child
right through ; and ardent love, the love which makes two souls
one, must stand back in wonder and be made dumb with awe.
Opinions come and go ; laughter and madness have their times of
riot and triumph ; attention is arrested by politics, business, war,
and pleasure : but there is the black, silent, gloomy valley, wait-
ing for us all! Is there no escape? May we not fly on white
wings away to the city of light, the home of bliss ? We know the
answer. We bow our heads, and our hearts are cold with fear.
" We must needs die." " There is no discharge in that war."
Proud man, boastful, foolish man, let the " valley " sometimes
come within thy purview, and sober thee into a moment's
considerateness !
" For thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me " (ver. 4).
Then the pious boast is not irrational, or presumptuous, or
sentimental. It is a sanctuary built upon a rock. The Psalmist
will be without fear, simply because he is in vital fellowship with
God. Nor is he left with the overpowering thought of Deity — a
magnificent intellectual conception — he has something he can
see and handle and enjoy, even a " rod " and a " staff." In many
forms do these helps present themselves, — the written word, the
palpable ordinance, the sympathetic friend, the remembered and
realised promise, — all those may be as the rod and staff of God^
Psalm xxiii.] THE DIVINE SHEPHERD. 179
meant for inspiration and comfort when the darkest cloud descends
upon the expiring day. The peculiarity of the Christian religion
is that it is most to us when we need it most. The night cannot
frighten it ; the storm has no effect upon its courage ; death owns
its sovereignty and retires before its approach. This is the sweet
necessity of the case, for God can know no fear, and to be in God
is to be like God. " Thou art with me," — my hand is locked in
thine, my life is drawn from thine, my future is involved in
thine; God and the saint are one. When death triumphs he
slays not the saint only, but also God. Take heart, then, for this
we know is impossible.
"Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies : thou
anointest my head with oil ; my cup runneth over ".(ver. 5).
God is a hospitable host ; he furnishes or spreads the table on
a high mountain, and the enemy looks on with rage and impotence
from the deep valley. God is the cup or portion of his people,
and each can say, as in this case, " My cup is abundant — drink,"
God does everything for his people. Rod, staff, table, unction,
cup, all are God's. "What hast thou that thou hast not re-
ceived ?" Truly, my soul, God treateth thee as a favourite and
setteth on thee special seals. So every believing man can say.
Each of us seems to be God's only child — God's one ewe lamb —
God's chosen delight. But all this favour involves corresponding
responsibility. Nothing is said in mere words about the respon-
sibility, but it is in the very heart and necessity of the case. We
cannot receive all and return nothing. Gratitude must find its
own most appropriate expressions. I must judge my piety as
certainly by its gratitude as by its mercies. No gratitude means
that the rain of love has been lost in a desert of insensibility.
"Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life : and
I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever " (ver. 6).
It has been thought that this reference to the house of the Lord
is decisive against the Davidic origin of the psalm. Perhaps so,
in a purely literal sense, but certainly not in the larger inter-
pretation of the singer's thought. The house of the Lord is a
wide term. Jacob saw " the house of God " in an unexpected
place. Surely there is a house for the heart — a sanctuary not
made with hands — a hiding-place and a covert from the storm.
i8o • THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xxiiL
Is not this suggested by the very words " for ever " ? No man
can literally abide in a literal house for ever. Man dies, stone
crumbles, all things earthly vanish as if but a phantasm. But
this sweet singer says he will abide for ever in a house that can-
not be destroyed. The house of God is Truth, Wisdom, Holiness,
Worship, Sacrifice,-^ — it signifies nearness to God, communion
with him, a perpetual abiding under the shadow of the Almighty.
My soul, seek thou no other home ! In thy Father's house there
is bread enough and to spare, and they that trust him shall want
no good thing.
This sweetest psalm holds a place of its own in sacred min-
strelsy. By many figures may its place be signified. It is the
nightingale of poems, for it sings in the darkness of death's valley.
Yet it is a poem that trills like the lark high above green pastures
and landscapes, yellow with golden wheat. Nay, it is more than
all this, for it seems to be sung by some one high in the summer
light, and thus to come down from heaven rather than rise from
earth. Did some angel open heaven's gate and sing this lyric
as the sun rose on the dewy pastures, and as morning made
burnished silver of the tranquil streams ? No — no. It is a
human psalm. Even man may sing. Even sinners may cele-
brate "free grace and dying love." Sad is the psalmless heart, —
orphaned, indeed, and shepherdless is he who sits in silence
when all nature celebrates the honour of her Lord. Shepherd of
the universe, seek thy lost one 1
PRAYER.
Almighty God, we bless thee that Jesus Christ has told us of his suffering
and his death, especially that he has told us of his rising again from the
dead, for no grave can hold his almightiness, and as for the darkness, lo I he
openeth his eyes upon it and it fleeth away for ever. We bless thee that
he has known the pain of death and the loneliness of the tomb, because,
having himself suffered as the captain of our salvation, he is able to sym-
pathise with those who are in suffering : he knoweth our frame, he remem-
bereth that we are but dust, and there is nothing in our life that he himself
has not first gone through. There hath no temptation assailed us with which
he is unfamiliar : he was in all points tempted like as we are ; he is touched
with the feeling of our infirmities : we have not a high priest who is far
exalted above our lot of sorrow and distress, but a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief, in whose great woe we may forget our light suffering
which is but for a moment. We gather in his name ; may he come into our
midst and send a warm glow of new and sacred love through all our hearts.
There are no words like his : we know his voice — it is the shepherd's tone,
it is the gentle word, the soothing accent : it is full of gospel, it is full of
promise — behold, thou dost give those who follow thee, O Son of man,
great light and measureless liberty, and an outlook upon things to come, far
and bright. Amen.
Psalm xxix.
[Note. — This is one of the psalms of nature. Keeping his father's flock
at Bethlehem, David may have witnessed such a storm as is here described,
gathering around the summit of Hermon in the north, and shaking at the
last the wilderness of Kadesh in the south. It is believed that the psalm
was sung on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. In modern synagogues
this psalm is appointed for the first day of Pentecost. The Hebrew Psalmist
ever remembers the personality of God in nature. He never confounds
Personality and Nature as equivalent terms, though he always regards nature
as full of God and as revealing God in every phase.]
PEACE.
"The Lord will bless his people with peace " ver. II.
HESE words are the more remarkable as occurring in a
T
psalm which sounds like a storm; or, to change the figure,
they are like the calm sunset of a most tempestuous day. The
i82 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xxix.
Psalmist says, The voice of the Lord is upon the waters : the God
of glory thundereth : the Lord is upon many waters. The voice
of the Lord is powerful ; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty.
The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars ; yea, the Lord breaketh
the cedars of Lebanon, He maketh them also to skip like a calf;
Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn. The voice of the
Lord divideth the flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shaketh
the wilderness ; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. —
After declarations like these, who would expect to hear anything
of Peace? Are they not like thunder which shall continue for
ever ? Yet it is even here, amid storms which shake the forests
and make the paths of the seas bare, that we hear a still small
voice promising the blessing of peace 1
You know what peace is, do you ? Few common terms are
less understood. Silence is not peace ; nor is indifference ; nor
is insensibility ; nor is the quiescence which comes of selfish fear
of consequences. There cannot be peace where there cannot be
passion. It is only in a modified sense that we speak of a tarn,
or a pool sheltered on every side, being at peace ; but when we
speak of a peaceful sea we speak accurately, for the sea is exposed
to forces which rouse it into terrible tempests. Peace must,
then, be understood as a composite term, — as an affirmative, not
as a negative condition. Some men have no sensibilities towards
God ; they see him, hear him, feel him, nowhere ; not in the light,
not in the wind, not in the day's story of gift and love and
mercy ; they are in a state of moral torpor. Are they at peace
with God ? Most truly not, for peace is other than death.
Where there is true peace there is of necessity a right relation
of forces; nothing preponderant, nothing conflicting; everything
has its due. In the case of the heart there must be life ; that life
must balance the entire nature, judgment, conscience, will, affec-
tion ; towards God there must be intelligence, devotion, constancy ;
towards man there must be justice, modesty, honour. Finding
all this, and we find peace ; finding a tendency towards this, and
we find a tendency towards peace ; finding this in perfection, and
we find a peace which passeth understanding.
These explanatory words should put us on our guard against
Psalm xxix.] PEACE. j§3
self-delusion, and excite the spirit of self-examination. Let us
look at the text as indicating Specialty of Character. A particular
class is spoken of, — not a world, but a section, — not everybody,
but certain particular persons, — " his people." In one sense all
people are his ; he created them by his power, he sustains them
by his bounty ; they hold the breath of their nostrils at his will ;
if he frown upon them they wither away. Is it not, then, true
that in one sense all people are the Lord's ? In another sense
all people may be the Lord's ; he addresses the world, he
welcomes the nations to the fullest joy of his love ; he draws no
line of separation, but bids all men look unto him and live. But
in this text the Psalmist uses the expression "his people" in a
peculiar sense; and if we give it a Christian interpretation, which
we are at liberty to do, we may regard it as comprehending all
who have exercised repentance towards God and faith in our
Lord Jesus Christ, — all who are sealed by the Holy Ghost, and,
consequently, all who direct their walk by the guidance of the
Comforter and Sanctifier of redeemed men. In so far as we come
under this designation we are inheritors of this final blessing, —
this blessing of Peace.
This distinction is made the clearer by a special reference to
those who set themselves against God, and so put themselves
beyond the range of his blessing. We can supply a terrible
background to the text, " There is no peace, saith the Lord,
unto the wicked." " Destruction and misery are in their ways,
and the way of peace have they not known." " The wicked are
like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast
up mire and dirt." "The wicked man travaileth with pain all
his days." These citations show that " peace " is not an indis-
criminate blessing. The sun shines and the rain falls upon all ;
but " peace " alights only upon those who have acquainted them-
selves with God, and made themselves at peace with him. What
then ? Shall we boast of this ? God forbid I Shall we carry
ourselves contemptuously towards those who are not enjoying
the same holy comfort, the same deep sweet calm ? Let us
rather turn our peace into an appeal to seek theirs, and by the
very ecstasy of our joy let us labour to make others happy in the
Lord. In calling us to peace, God has not called us to indolence ;
iS4 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [fsalrnxxlx.
a deep sleep must not be mistaken for a deep peace. We must
resemble in some degree the worlds which are at rest by reason
of their velocity. The earth is at rest, yet no wing of flying bird
can travel so fast ; the light gives no sign of motion, yet no
runner can give us the faintest idea of its speed. Rest is the
ultimate expression of motion. God is at rest, yet energy is
streaming out of him constantly to vivify all the creations of his
power. We refer to these things to save the text from abuse,
lest the alien should claim the child's heritage, and lest the child
himself should forget his duty to the alien. Such is peace, and
such are they to whom the blessing is given.
We have spoken of peace. But there is a peace that is false,
against which we should strive with all our might. Some of the
Puritan writers were very emphatic on this point : —
"A man that comes into his house at midnight sees nothing amiss; in the
daylight he finds many things misplaced. Nature is but a dark lantern,
when by it we endeavour to ransack the conscience. Only the light of grace
call demonstrate all the sluttish and neglected disorders in our souls." —
Adams, 1653.
" In two ways especially the devil pipes and lulls drowsy consciences
asleep^by mirth and by business. Mark this, you that dwell at ease and
swim in wealth. Your consciences that lie still like sleepy mastiffs, in plague
times and sweating sicknesses they will fly at the throat; they flatter like
parasites in prosperity, and like sycophants accuse in adversity. Such con-
sciences are quiet not because they are at peace, but becauee they are riot
at leisure." — Ward, 1577-1639.
" The peace of an ill conscience arises not from any sound security, but
rather from want of spiritual exercise. Herein like unto a lame horse, which
complains not of his lameness while he lies at ease, but when by travel he
becomes sensible of his pain, he cannot endure it, but halts downright." —
DowNAME, 1642.
"If the pulse beat not, the body is most dangerously sick; if the con-
science prick not, there is a dying soul." — Adams.
" Security is the very suburbs of hell : there is nothing more wretched than
a wretched man that recks not his own misery ; an insensible heart is the
devil's anvil — he fashions all sin on it, and the blows are not felt." — Adams.
Such is the testimony of some of England's great preachers of
other days. Their testimony is solemnly, awfully true. Possible
to have something like peace, and yet be awakened into torment-
ing and inappeasable remorse ! Possible to think one's self
strong, and yet all the while to be rotting away at the very
heart !
Psalm xxix.] PEA CE. 185
We gladly turn from this phase of the subject to point out the
practical consequence which ought to flow from such a promise
as that "the Lord will bless his people with peace." Surely
such a promise should make the Church calm and hopeful under
the most distressing circumstances, even though the earth be
removed and the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.
It speaks little for our vital relationship to God when we are dis-
turbed by every sound of tumult. Union with God should mean
participation in the nature of God ; not mere connection, but
spiritual oneness ; not the union of a link, but the union of life.
The good man may be violently tossed about as if God had a
controversy with him, yet in the depths of his heart there may
be a great peace. The very stress, too, that is put upon him
will give him a bolder and richer character if it be accepted
filially, and deepen the peace which it threatened to destroy.
The good man should not read the surface, or trouble himself
with the accidents of the hour. The apostles, when cast down,
were not destroyed ; when persecuted, were not forsaken. If
God be for us, who can be against us ? Let men who have no
God tremble and be dismayed when portentous shadows stretch
over the earth, and reverberating storms shake the atmosphere,
and lightning flashes like the sword of awakening vengeance ;
but they who abide under the wings of the Almighty may
"The dark'ning universe defy
To quench their immortality,
Or shake their trust in God."
Two things are clear : Out of God there is no peace; in God
there is perfect peace. The good man meets every day with a
hopeful spirit, and will meet his last day with the most hopeful
spirit of all. He will have great peace in the day of death. He
knows what death means. Immediately behind death is heaven,
and towards that he has been making his toil an aspiration, and
his suffering a desire.
"Death is another life. We bow our heads
At going out, we think, and enter straight
Another golden chamber of the King's,
Larger than this, and lovelier."
No storm beats upon the upper land ; no nightly shadows fall on
the eternal light. But let us remember that we must have the
1 86 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xxix.
peace here, or we can never know it there ; here we must utter
the bridal vow, and prepare the bridal attire ; here we must
renounce the petty charms of mocking charmers, and lay hold on
eternal life ; here we must show the spirit, the high heroism, and
noble patience of men who have entered into the love of Christ ;
here we must win the victory, there we shall wear the crown ;
here we must know the grace, there we shall know the glory ;
here we must suffer on the Cross, there we shall be established
on the throne; here we must prove that peace is not an idle
sentiment, there we shall know J;hat rest is not a transient
dream.
We know how the poet, standing in the city, longed for the
open country :
"To hear the soft and whispering rain, feel the dewy cool of leaves;
Watch the lightnings dart like swallows round the brooding thunder
eaves ;
To lose the sense of whirling streets, 'mong breezy crests of hills,
Skies of larks, and hazy landscapes, with fine threads of silver rills ;
Stand with forehead bathed in sunset on a mountain's summer crown.
And look up and watch the shadow of the great night coming down;
One great life in my myriad veins, in leaves, in flowers, in cloudy
cars;
Blowing, underfoot, in clover; beating, overhead, in stars 1"
With an intenser, purer, loftier passion, the soul desires the
peace of heaven.
"There shall no tempest blow,
No scorching noontide heat J
There shall be no more snow,
No weary, wandering feet ;
So we lift our trusting eyes
From the hills our fathers trod^
To the quiet of the skies,
The Sabbath of our God."
PRAYER.
Almighty God, thou dost train us to strength and lead us to peace by thine
own way. What strange things thou dost permit us to see ; they shock our
sense; yea, sometimes our piety revolts, and we begin to ask our souls
most painful questions. Sometimes it seems as if thou wert absent alto-
gether from thy creation, or as if thou hadst turned away from it in disdain,
and left all men to do what they please. We have seen the wicked in great
power, and spreading themselves like a green bay tree, and we have
wondered where their root was, and how they came to be nourished by the
light and the dew of heaven ; they are not in trouble as other men : their
eyes stand out with fatness ; their houses are full of beautiful things, and
their stables are full of horses, and as for their fields they abound in grass
and in corn ; and we have said to ourselves, Surely God hath forgotten his
own children, and hath lavished his love upon men who never name his name.
The evil-doer has out-run the doer of good, and has had rest and peace and
plent}' and fatness, when men whose souls are pure have been left without
to lie down where they might, and suffer all the ills of contemptuous fortune.
Behold, we have looked upon these things, and we have no answer to them.
If they lie within the compass of time, then are we without reply to the
mysteries which they present. Whilst we say these things our hearts go
down within us; yea, they sink like lead in the waters. Then a voice is
heard, saying. Their time is very short, their rope is very little, their oppor-
tunity is but a moment long : presently they will consume like the fat of
lambs, into smoke shall they consume away, and the place of their root shall
know them no more, and their evil shadow shall be chased from the earth.
So then we take comfort in the words we have read — for ever; yea, for
ever. Then any little measurable time set against this infinite period is as
the twinkling of an eye, or as a watch in the night ; it is nothingness and
disappointment. Then we hear still further music from heaven : Rest in the
Lord, wait patiently for him ; commit thy way unto the Lord, and he shall
bring it to pass ; trust in the Lord, and do good. Such exhortations elevate
us, bring us to a new level and tone of mind, and make us feel that we are
not yet without teaching and without spiritual direction. Thou hast thine
own way of teaching thine own school ; we cannot tell altogether what it
is, but we have come to believe that it is Avell, wise, best';(/\i>^e are now
willing to do what once we could not do — to wait, to stand still, to expect
and hope. This is thy miracle wrought in the heart. We praise thee for it.
Once we were blind, now we see ; once impatient, now time is nothing to
us : the days come, and linger for a moment, and fly away, and the years
are rounded off and the hour of consummation draws near. We bless thee
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
for all thy care — tender, minute, full of detail, so that every moment has
been treated as an eternity, and every pain as an agony, and every cry of
sorrow and need as a mighty prayer. Thou hast anticipated all our wants :
whilst we have been praying for them *thou hast been spreading the table, so
that when our eyes have been opened the feast has been ready. When we
have said. We will hasten unto the sanctuary and tell God this, behold
messengers have met us to say the prayer is answered. We thank thee for
all personal testimony, for direct individual oath, sworn in the court of the
universe and in the presence of men and of angels. We thank thee for the
assurance that we are standing upon a rock, that what is over us is God's
own blue sky, full of hidden stars and warm with coming summer. So now
we have no pain, or fear, or grief, dragging us down into unfaith and de-
spair, but we know that the word of Jesus Christ thy Son shall be realised,
that thy kingdom shall come, that thy will shall be done on earth as it is
done in heaven, and that thy day will burn as an oven against all evil. We
cannot give up this holy truth, this poetry of the soul, this revelation of God ;
it is most to us when the world is least to us : disappointment helps our prayer;
the emptiness of the world suggests the fulness of heaven ; when there is no
water in the channel, when our feet are pained and bruised by the rocks over
which we pass to seek thy fountains, behold a voice says. The river of God is
full of water. All this we have learned in the school of Christ under the
discipline of the Cross and under the inspiration of God the Holy Ghost.
We have learned this because of thy providence in the ages gone. All
past time gathers up its fulness in our experience ; so that we are not our-
selves only : we represent the generations that are passed. We increase the
faith of the olden time ; we add to it our own experience, and speak it all with
our own accent. Look upon men as they need to be looked upon. Too
swift a glance would kill some men, because they are so weak ; look gently
upon those, as if not looking : come to them as a dawning day rather than
as a flash of lightning. Speak comfortably to those who are much cast down,
whether through bodily infirmity, or circumstantial difficulty, or domestic
perplexity, and breathe into such the spirit of hope. Comfort those who do
not know what to do because of the many ways which lie before them —
some full of temptation, and others hard with difficulty. Be thou the guide
and light, and a lamp unto the feet, a directing voice in the soul ; then
shall men be delivered from perplexity and led in an open way. Pity those
who have seen how bad a master the devil is, and how hot are the wages of
sin, — fools who have been led miles down the wrong road, and who have been
evasive and false and equivocating, who have tampered with evil, who have
compromised with wickedness and have gone near to being criminals, but
who this day see how foul is the wrong road, how detestable is the evil
spirit, how awful is the pit of hell. They have come back ; they are in
thy house ; they are scourged ; they are bent down ; they feel that their
bones are full of arrows, and that a spear is in their heart. Wherein they
repent and shed true tears of contrition, thou wilt be pitiful to them, and
merciful, with an infinite gentleness, and even they may be brought to see
how good a master is Christ, how mighty a Redeemer bows his head upon the
Cross. The Lord permit us to walk still in his way, and teach us by the
sufferings of others how we may avoid some suffering ourselves ; may the
Psalm xxxvii.] A FAITHFUL WITNESS. 189
lessons of the day not be lost upon us ; may the events of the time be
eloquent preachers, discoursing of righteousness, temperance, and judgment
to come ; and lead us to say to the living Father, Hold thou me up, and I shall
be safe. The Lord heal broken hearts; the Lord himself make soft the bed
of pain and the pillow of weariness ; the Lord set a lamp in the house at
midnight ; the Lord receive the prodigal with open arms. Cleanse us by
the precious blood — the blood of Christ, the atoning, sacrificial blood, — the
mystery of eternity, the mystery of love. Amen.
. Psalm xxxvii.
A FAITHFUL WITNESS.
DO we not say that there are some subjects upon which only
men of experience are qualified to speak ? Is that law in
the market-place, in the court of justice, in the family circle ?
Surely it ought to be. It seems to be charged with reason which
the very dullest eye can instantly perceive. Are there not some
subjects with regard to which, as to their exposition and appli-
cation, nearly everything depends upon the character of the
expositor and the witness ? In some cases we say, What is
said ? But in other instances we say, Who has said it ? There
are abstract subjects, mere matters of fancy or opinion, regarding
which any passing judgment may be taken into account, but
there are other subjects — practical, patent, earnest, about which
no one has a right to speak but the man of lofty character and
ample and genuine experience.
In this psalm a man undertakes to testify who pledges his age
and his honour to every declaration which he makes. It is
satisfactory to have to deal with such a witness. Ingenuousness
is marked upon his face ; honesty is in the ring of his voice ; he
has his life-books with him — his diary, written day by day
patiently and carefully, and he says he is willing to testify any-
where concerning great issues of life, concerning instances which
puzzle the imagination and stun the conscience. It will be
agreeable to talk with this old man. We shall pluck rich fruit
from this well-grown tree ; there is about him ripeness, maturitj'-,
solidity, and withal a [fascinating kind of spiritual music, which
makes even his judgment and his anger instructive as to moral
issues. He is not a harsh man ; he is not rabid, acrid, hard, but
quite a genial old witness, most solid and yet most radiant, — now
1 90 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xxxvii.
so solemn as if he were conscious of the oath that is upon him,
and now full of delight as if sudden Sabbath had quieted the
tumult of the week and lifted him up into heaven's joy. He
gains our confidence at once by recognising the difficulty of the
case. If he had come to undervalue the case, saying. It is largely
imaginary, this is but an invention of an intoxicated or perverted
fancy, we should have put him out of court altogether, because
the facts are not to be commented upon in that tone : they are
black facts, they are painful facts, they are facts upon which we
can lay our own hand, and laying it on such facts, we feel as if
we had laid the hand upon sharp spears and edged instruments.
The Psalmist says : I entirely take that view of the case ; they
are awful and bewildering facts ; I cannot reconcile them with
any theory of natural reason ; they upset all the deductions of
probability ; likelihood stands aghast at the spectacle : there,
however, the facts are patent, visible, demonstrated beyond all
dispute, black witnesses speaking in favour of evil, and by so
much discountenancing the government which we call good.
The Psalmist says : There are evildoers, there are workers of
iniquity, there are men who spread themselves like a green bay
tree, there are liars, there are men whose whole heart is full of
evil ; they are not to be counted by ones and twos, but by great
throngs and masses. Were they all to be gathered upon a hill-side
they would make it black ; not one green thing could be seen
amid the shadows that would be cast upon the mountain. Yes, it
is quite right to take a black view of the case ; the wicked are
millions strong ; they are fat and well-to-do, they are borne
down by weights of gold, and they edge out men who pray and
think, and who love God. So far we like the old man's talk.
When we are conscious of great pain and utter weariness we do
not wish to consult a physician who trifles with our conscious
disease. He gains upon our confidence as he enters into our
feeling ; if he can suggest words for some feeling we have not
hitherto expressed, even the suggestion of woijds will help us to
confide in his judgment : we say. This mair follows the case; he
is gifted with strong piercing sight ; nothing escapes him ; he is
determined to make out the case first before he talks anything
about his cure. We honour him for this ; he is, a wise healer.
So it is with the Psalmist. If we ourselves had been called upon
Psalm xxxvii.] A FAITHFUL WITNESS. igi
to find words to express the position of the wicked, in many
instances we could not have chosen words so exquisite, so fit, so
adequate, and all-embracing. So far, good.
Now many a man can tell the disease who cannot tell the cure.
What will he say in relation to this awful condition of affairs ?
He boldly takes his stand upon certain great principles. He
does not palter with the case. Looking at the great wall that is
to be thrown down, he does not attempt to throw cherry stones
at it, or small pebbles ; he says. This wall must be shaken down
by the thunder of heaven, and by nothing else. Hear him.
Mark the mellowness of his tone, the dignity of his posture : —
"Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and
verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the Lord ; and he shall give
thee the desires of thine heart. Commit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also
in him ; and he shall bring it to pass. And he shall bring forth thy righ-
teousness as the light, and thy judgment as the noonday. Rest in the Lord,
and wait patiently for him : fret not thyself because of him who prospereth
in his way, because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass"
(vers. 3-7).
We know the right answer when we hear it. Instantly about
some replies we say. They lack dignity ; they are sharp, not
broad ; they are clever, not inspired ; they will serve for a
momentary satisfaction, but because there is no deepness of earth
they will soon wither away. The suddenness of this man's action
is pleasing when the agony is so acute. He does not proceed
slowly. He no sooner states his case than he instantly surrounds
it with all heaven's light and grace. To have kept us waiting
would have been to have increased our misery. We must know
in the very first sentence the tone which the man is going to
adopt and the doctrine which he is about to establish by illustra-
tion. So far we are satisfied. He invokes the Lord's name —
not as a name significant of leisurely contemplation, but as
associated with infinite activity, and as pledged to certain issues.
The Psalmist does not hesitate to pledge God's name to the con-
clusion, so not only will he be convicted of a slip in logic, he will
be convicted of a crime in religion, if his predictions be falsified
by events. But how is the Lord to be treated ? Granted that
he is in heaven, and granted that his eyes are upon the children
of men, and granted that there will be a final judgment — when,
192 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xxxvii.
no one can forecast, — how is God to be treated amid all this
tumult, darkress, difficulty, and horrible stress ? First of all the
Psalmist says he is to be trusted : — " Trust in the Lord " : lean
upon him ; do not touch him with one finger, as if by way of
symbol, or acknowledgment, or temporary lien, but cast thyself
upon him — body, soul, and spirit, — the full weight, no ounce
taken out of the heavy burden. That is a summons to faith ;
that is a challenge to reason. We must take time to consider
that : the demand is so exhaustive and imperative. Who can all
at once relinquish himself, and cast his whole personality and
estate upon the divine name ? Not only trust him, — God must be
enjoyed : — " Delight thyself also in the Lord " (ver. 4'). Do not
let the trusting be a discipline, a hard work of penance, a hard
and severe thing to do, but a positive joy, delight, passion of
gladness. Who can answer that daring challenge ? It tears us
to pieces; it shakes us in our fancied securities; it bids us look
at and trust and enjoy him who is not seen. Not only so. God
must not only be trusted and enjoyed, he must be waited for : —
" Wait patiently for him " (ver. 7). Are we prepared for these
conditions ? They all go dead against us ; they are not in
the line of usage ; they are not in the .line of desire. We are
impatient, petulant, self-asserting, — we cannot wait. All this is
a sign of incompleteness. The mature person can wait longer
than the little child. The little child must have what it wants
at once. The man can smile at the little child's impatience ; he
can wait a day or two, but even his power of endurance is soon
exhausted. Impatience becomes unbelief; unbelief becomes
disbelief; disbelief becomes atheism. There is a short course to
the devil 1
What does the Psalmist proceed to teach ? Having laid down
certain great principles, he sets up certain positive standards
of reckoning. He says in effect : We must call time into this
judgment : we must alter the whole field of vision. Some things
are not to be seen if they are too near. You must stand back
from some pictures before you will see all their meaning and all
their music and mystery. In some instances you must let time
elapse before you form a judgment. So we are told that history
will judge the time in which we ourselves are living ; in other
Psalm xxxvii.] A FAITHFUL WITNESS. 193
words, men who are not now born, but who will be born a
century hence, will pronounce a judgment upon the century in
which we now live. If we allow that in history, surely we cannot
disallow it in morals and theology. Wise men say, This is not
the time to judge the events which are going on around us; there
is a great tumult, a great excitement; political passion is roused;
religious feeling is irritated : we must commit the issue to history;
posterity will tell the value of what we are now doing. When
the same claim is set up on the part of providence, surely it
cannot be haughtily disallowed or frivolously rejected. The
Psalmist, therefore, says in ver. 10, " A little while " ; and in
ver. 16, "A little that a righteous man hath." He has altered
the weights and standards of the country. He has come in with
a great authority to say. What you have been counting much is
little : you are wrong in your theory of weights and measures ;
your standards need rectification : you must take the whole of
your mechanical judgments into the sanctuary to be rectified by
God ; you must bring your chronometers into the temple to be
adjusted by the eternal and infinite meridian. Now we begin
to see a little light upon the bad man's prosperity. To be told,
first of all, that it is for a little while, alters the entire complexion
of the case. The spenBthrift says : I have ten pounds a week
income, that is five hundred and twenty a year; let me spend
fifty pounds the first week, and see what it is like to live at the
rate of two thousand six hundred a year. The fool is burning
the candle at both ends ; he is eating up his seed-corn — the very
corn that he ought to be garnering to throw into the arid soil
at the next sowing-time. " A little while " — a flash, and all is
dark again ; a bubble bursting in a moment, and leaving nothing
behind but a frail reflection of its hue and tint ; a little flutter,
and all is over. A most ingenuous reply, and as profound as
ingenuous. The Psalmist fixes upon the evanescence of all
worldly pomp, and says : Really it is not worth fighting for ; it
perishes in the using ; it is a momentary gilt which will ?oon
peel off, or it will be cankered and destroyed.
Now he turns aside to the righteous man's " little," and taking
it up in his hand he says : This outweighs the riches of many
wicked. So then, if men have been proceeding by a false
VOL. XII. 13
194 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xxxvii.
arithmetic, what is the value of all their numerical reasoning?
Though they may have carried out their cubing and squaring and
extraction of roots to a thousand decimal points, they were wrong
at the start, and the further they have carried their decimals the
further they have prolonged their condemnation. The unit was
wrong, the method of multiplication was wrong, and therefore to
continue it is to aggravate the guilt which will be charged upon
the mistaken calculator. Some " littles " cannot be exhausted ;
some sovereigns cannot be changed ; they are always growing
into more and more, not in arithmetical value, but in softie sense
in real practical uses. Many a time we have seen the end of
our barrel of flour; we have put our thin fingers through the
meal ; we have said. This cannot last more than two days ; and
behold the next time we have gone to it, it is still sufficient to
last two days longer ; and again we have returned, after having
satisfied our hunger amply, and we have said, Really we must
have made a mistake in the first instance j there is quite a week's
meal left now. If this were fancy we have common-sense
enough to despise it ; but having lived it we have honesty enough
to avow it.
So the Psalmist is encompassing his case in a masterly way.
Having set up certain great principles, and shown how God is
to be treated in the midst of providential mysteries, and having
changed the whole scheme of weights, measures, and standards,
he next pledges his word as an eye-witness. He says (ver. 23),
" The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord : and he
delighteth in his way"; and again (vers. 35, 36), "I have seen
the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green
bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not : yea, I
sought him, but he could not be found " ; and again (ver. 37),
" I have marked the perfect man, I have beheld the upright, and I
am here to say that the end of that man is peace." This is not
indirect testimony ; this is not collateral witness ; this is not
incidental statement : it constitutes the broad line, first, of the
accusation, and, secondly, of the defence. Now have we not
seen precisely the same providences, the same allotments, and the
same issues ? Let us think a little. Where are the men whom
we once counted great and strong and terrible when they took
Psalm xxxvii.] A FAITHFUL WITNESS. 195
up a policy of opposition ? With closed eyes, looking back some
thirty years, we see them all : we see many of them, as we
then thought, well-dressed, refined, well-to-do, influential ; they
sneered at Bethels, and Ebenezers, Rehoboths, and other
sanctuaries ; they curled their lip at praying-men, and had secret
and too subtle jokes at the expense of those who kept the Sabbath
and read the Bible ; they had white hands unstained by work,
fair faces unripped and unploughed by grief, and their laugh was
their chief argument against all theology, their sneer was the one
arm which they used in assaulting the citadel of God. Where are
they ? We cannot tell ; they have left no name, fame, inspiration.
Their names are never mentioned. They have built nothing,
endowed nothing, consecrated nothing. If some memory should
challenge the recollection of others, saying. Can you recall so-and-
so ? the challenged recollection is puzzled — " no," or a reluctant
or hesitant " yes." But they have gone — shadows, mockeries,
the little laughers, the puny sneerers, the men whose church
was in their pockets, whose altar was at the bank, — they have
gone ; and where are many of the other class, that prayed, and
taught the young, and sacrificed with the poor, and visited the
lonely; they live in many a heart; they are named with tears;
they are blessed by the generation following.
Then two courses are before us : we can rank ourselves
amongst the wicked — have a short life and a merry one, dance
to hell's music down to hell's fire — we are at perfect liberty to
join them : it belongs to manhood to deny or defy the living God ;
or we can, by the grace of the living God, join the other class — join
those who trust in the Lord, who delight themselves in the Lord,
who comii.it their way unto the Lord, rest in the Lord, wait
patiently for the Lord. That is followed by immediate loss of a
certain kind. That is followed by the laughter of society. That
'means the forfeiture of many an invitation — an invitation to talk
nonsense and to eat and drink poison. That means the cutting
off of many expenses. Some are not prepared to live at such
a rate. It is too cheap, too poor; they want to splash and dash,
and foam and rush, and churn the passing time into froth. Poor
fools ; why were they born ? We can be students, worshippers,
philanthropists, fountains of water in the wilderness, and lights
196 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xxxvii.
like beacons on hilltops in the night-time to guide poor
wanderers ; we can live in the soul rather than in the body ; we
can advance along the high spiritual line, asking great questions,
considering great subjects, breathing great prayers, rather than
asking frivolous questions and contenting ourselves with frivolous
replies. But if we take this second course the Psalmist insists
upon morality. Thus he says (ver. 3), not only " trust in the
Lord," but "do good"; then (ver. 27) he says, "depart from
evil, and do good." This is no fancy heaven ; this is no poetic
paradise : those who are serving God have coats off and both hands
stretched out in labour, and how to be good in God's sight with-
out attracting the attention of men is the supreme inquiry of
the soul. So, then, the Christian religion is no pastime. We are
to be faithful, watchful, painstaking. The Apostle says : I keep
my body under, lest, having published the names of intending
competitors in the race or wrestle — lest, after having acted as a
herald, saying, So-and-so will run to-day, wrestle to-day, I
myself having heralded them should become a castaway — not in
the list at all myself, a mere announcer of other athletes, but an
outcast myself. From the beginning of the Bible to the end the
great exhortation is : Cease from evil ; learn to do well ; wash
you, make you clean ; do good ; be watchful ; observe the laws of
discipline ; for only in so doing is there safety. The idle man is
caught at odds ; the sleeping man is slain in his slumber ; only
the watchful servant will be ready, come when his Lord may,
at the cock-crowing, at the dawn, at high noon, or in solemn
midnight.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, our souls thirst for thee : thou art the living water : the
river of God is full of water ! We know that thou alone canst quench the
thirst of the soul; we hear the voice of Jesus Christ thy Son saying, If any
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink : we hear the voice of the
prophets crying, Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters : we
hear many voices saying, Come : the Spirit and the Bride say, Come ; let
him that heareth say. Come ; let him that is athirst come ; yea, come, let
him drink freely of the water of life. We bless thee for this burning thirst ;
we thank thee that having drunk up all the rivers of time and pleasure we
are still athirst for water beyond. It is for the living water that we thirst ;
if any man drink of the wells of earth he shall thirst again, but if any man
drink of the water of Christ he shall never thirst, but the water which Christ
giveth the man shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting
life. Lord, give unto us this spring water, this water that comes up from
the rocks, and which never can be dried by scorching suns. Even in the
wilderness thou wilt find water for us, and pools in desert places. Regard
us as those who are now subjected to the wear and tear of life. Thou
knowest how cruel this life of ours must needs be, chased and hunted and
persecuted, and affrighted by evil presences every hour, tested by loss and
pain, and brought oftentimes into utterest despair : Lord Jesus, help us ;
Saviour of the world, open our eyes, open our ears, that we may see and
hear the living messenger of God. Specially help those to whom life is
a daily burden ; hold thou the lamp above the page when they read of whom
thou hast elected to be thy ministers and evangels. Be with those who have
to find what joy they can in loneliness, for the world knoweth them not.
The Lord heal our afflictions, dry our tears, direct our way, and at the end
cause us to say. Blessed be God for sorrow, because but for this sorrow we
had not known the truest, tenderest joy. Behold us at the Cross, where no
man ever prayed in vain. Amen.
Psalm xlii. 1.
" As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after
the^ O God."
THIRSTING FOR GOD.
WHY does the hart pant after the water brooks? Why
does not the hart go quietly and take its draught of
limpid water ? Why this panting, why this heart-beating, why
198 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xlii. i.
this pulsing all over ? See how the poor beast pants, quakes in
distress ! The little birds go and take their sip of dew with
decent quietude; they make no stir or tumult Why then
should the hart pant ? for the term is energetic, indicative of an
excited state of blood. We need some other word here to ex-
plain the situation ; put in the word " chased " or the word
" hunted," and we have the idea : — As the hunted hart, the hart
chased by hounds ; as the hart flying from the enemy, more
dead than living ; as the overrun, overborne, imperilled hart
pants and cries for the water brooks, so . . . then we fill in our
human experience ; for if we are living any life at all we are
hunted and chased, persecuted, threatened. If we are living
quiet and unassailed lives, moving about at our own pace easily,
depend upon it we are giving the enemy no distress ; he is quite
content to have it so, he knows that men in that condition cannot
drink much water; they do not feel their need of it. It is hunted
souls that pray, threatened, chased souls that cry out mightily for
the living God. Until we are sensible of being hunted we cannot
pray much. We can pray dimly, respectably, fluently, and in
many huddled and incoherent sentences ask God to do some-
thing without ever caring to test the answer; but when the
breath of the hound is upon our neck, when his very next
spring will bring him upon us, and we shall be overthrown in
a terrific confusion and fear, then we begin to pant for the living
God. Away with your praying, and let us have panting, for
your praying may be but a mechanical exercise, tribute paid
to custom ; but panting means prostration, earnestness, weakness
of a kind which is the beginning of strength. How very much
cool praying we have, and what very delicately calculated com-
pliments have been paid by watching critics to that kind of praying,
— so quiet, so restful, so measured, so easy altogether. Far too
much so, ruinously so. Who shall take the kingdom by force ?
The violent. You do not want the water if you ask for it in that
tame tone.
" As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so . . ." The
" so " is balanced by the " as." These words of manner must be
equal the one to the other ; the hart will be ashamed of them if it
should ever come to know that so quiet, tame speech addressed
Psalm xlii. I.] THIRSTING FOR GOD. 199
to heaven is supposed to represent its earnestness when it is
hunted by furious hounds.
"As the hart . . ." Then this soul-panting after God is
natural. Always distinguish between a natural and an acquired
appetite or desire. Whatever is natural admits of legitimate
satisfaction ; whatever is acquired grows by what it feeds on
until it works out the ruin of its devotee. " As the hart panteth
after the water brooks . . ." No hart ever panted after wine ;
no bird in the air ever fluttered because of a desire to be intoxi-
cated. As the hart panteth after water, God's wine. The
appetite or the thirst, then, is natural, inborn, divinely implanted
or created ; and when we lose or leave the line of nature we
become weak, infatuated, lost. Carry up all your instincts and
impulses to their highest utility and suggestiveness; be very
careful that you do not intermix with them acquired, temporary,
polluted appetites and impulses. Tertullian says the natural
response of the human heart is Christian. You are very fond
of quoting old theology, why do you not quote Tertullian ? You
are fond of patristic literature, especially where you can only
read a line here and there and make no sense of it, why do you
not quote this testimony of an old writer ? It is a noble testi-
mony, it is a true testimony. We have done injustice to nature
if we say it does not know God or care for God ; when a right
appeal is addressed to man his response is an affirmative answer.
The understanding needs God, the heart, in all its tumult of
emotion and all its agony of dissatisfaction, needs the living One,
who alone has the fountain of living waters. It is the unbeliever
who is unnatural. A man has to overthrow the whole system
of the universe when he becomes an infidel; that is to say, he
has to overthrow it so far as it is a basis of calculation, so far as
it is a unit which can be utilised in working out all the great
problems of experience and destiny. It is the infidel who works
all the destructive miracles. When a man prays he is himself,
he is realising the purpose of God in his creation ; when a man
goes to the sanctuary he is then in his best mood, he is in his
finest aspect and condition. The sanctuary is not a stone building
put up by human hands, it is his Father's house, a rough emblem
of the house heavenly. Do not suppose, therefore, that prayer is
200 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xlii. i.
an acquired habit. Prayer represents the soul in its divine
purpose, the soul at its best, the soul with the sunshine on it.
It is natural, in the profoundest sense of the term, to seek God ;
it is perverted nature, fallen or corrupt nature, that flees from
the divine presence.
" As the hart panteth ..." That would be a poor place to stop
at ; there is no punctuation after the word " panteth." God is
not mocked, nor will he mock his earnest creatures. " As the
hart panteth after the water brooks." Who made them ? Why,
the brooks were there before the hart was ; the provision was
made before the need was felt. See how one part of life is
balanced by the other. " As the hart panteth after the water
brooks." How knew the hart that the water brooks were what
he wanted in the time of his burning thirst ? Doth not nature
herself teach you ? Is there not a presence within you always
teaching you alphabets and simple reading books, and the higher
literature ? Who found out that water would be a good thing
to take when the tongue was parched with thirst ? Did any
bright angel say to the hart. Now in the present condition of
your temperature what you really need is a draught of this limpid
water ? The hart knew that without being told ; the moment the
hunted beast saw the water brooks, there he was. The idea
to fix the mind upon, however, is this — that provision is made
for every legitimate impulse, aspiration, desire, thirst of the
soul. Can we accuse God of the unpardonable cruelty of having
created an appetite and forgotten to provide for its satisfaction ?
" Eat and drink abundantly, O beloved ! " is the cry of heaven's
hospitality. Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for these capacities shall all be filled to overflow.
Why then are j'ou looking round to see what you can invent for
the satisfaction of your thirst ? Can you invent more than a
river, a fountain, an eternally-springing water ? These are God's
provisions. You can make mixtures of your own, and you can
so mix your inventions as to increase the thirst which they
momentarily allay. All man-made drinks help to make intenser
the thirst to which they address their hypocritical, their false,
their costly appeal. Noihing can quench thirst but water — water
— God's wine.
Psalm xlii. I.] THIRSTING FOR GOD. 20i
"As the hart panteth after" — goes out in desire of. Why
did not the hart satisfy itself from within ? Doos not the hunted
beast carry its own supplies of food and drink ? Do the young
lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God ? Why
do they not turn in upon themselves, saying, Lions carry their
own bounty, lions are indebted to nothing external, lions feed
upon that which they themselves carry within ? The cry of all
nature is for something beyond itself. If' no provision has been
made for that cry, then God has mocked his creatures, and is
therefore no longer God, we cannot say concerning him, " God
is love." We have not enough within ourselves ; we have to
go out for everything, and the going does us good. Blessed
be they who have to go a long way to church. If a man shall
turn in next door to the sanctuary the probability is he will
never go to church at all ; when he is there, he is not there. It is
the walk that helps us to pray ; it is the journey that becomes
part of the sacrament. We have to go out for knowledge. The
most learned man in the world never left his own son his personal
knowledge of the alphabet. He left him his penholder and gold
pen. What a mockery I — as who should say. Now, dear boy,
take this gold pen, and do what I did; begin where I ended.
Every man has to go outside of himself for his alphabet.
So much for the hart, chased and panted, hunted, hound-
pursued : what of the human soul ? " So panteth," That word
"so" must be interpreted in all the length and breadth of its
meaning if we would understand this text. All nature pants
after something else in nature. The flowers every morning pant
in their sweet, gentle way for the rain ; they cannot go to it, so
the rain comes to them. That is how dear Mother Nature treats
her household. The hart has to go after the water brooks, but
the water brooks in the form of rain have to come after the flower.
They cannot move an inch towards the fountain ; but they know
about it, they are quite sure it is there ; and is there not, to poet's
dreaming eye, some look of expectancy in the flower as it watches
the gathering cloud? The harvest pants in its speechless way
for the sun. Sometimes the harvest says, I do not want any
more rain, I have had tqp much rain ; I want long days of
sunshine; I am almost ripe, I feel as if in one week more I
2-^2 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xlii, i.
shouli"' be like gold, but just now, for want of the sun, I feel wet
and shivering and self-disappointed : oh, I cry for light, for heat,
for cloudless days ! Everything in nature wants something else
in nature, and thus the commerce of creation is kept up, the
great free trade of natural elements communicating with one
another is maintained. The bees — where be ye for, winged
ones ? what seek ye ? — the flowers, the pollen ; we seek food ;
we have a great factory to keep going, and we are out early to
make a good day of it. Have you no honey within yourselves ?
No. Is it an absolute necessity that you must come out in this
early morning and continue all day working in this sort of way ?
Yes. That is how God keeps house. If any man hath under-
taken to make his own gods, let him have his home-made deities,
a whole closetful of them if he likes, a whole museum-full if it
so please him, and let them do what they can for him when
he wants them. Men go out for the landscape. A man is not
complete without the summer. A man may go to the mountain
for beauty or grandeur ; true : but he goes to the mountain for
something more. Nature is not only beautiful, flowery ; nature
is medicinal. The sea is the doctor, the mountain is the physician.
Old loving Mother Nature has her own drug stores; frequent
them, and you will seldom go elsewhere. There is not a moun-
tain in the world that is not helping the health of the world.
The great Atlantic or any of the great seas are so many great
sanitary powers. They are not merely so many miles long
or broad ; they are sanitive agents. All the little flowers are
doctors. If you were to go out ever so heart-sore, you might
get better by talking to a primrose. Lift up your eyes, behold
who created these things, suns and ^ars and systems. He who
rolled the stars along counted the haiis of your head.
"So panteth my soul after thee, O God." Yea, for nothing
less. Man needs all God. Every sinner needs the whole Cross.
Every flower needs the whole solar system. Some have at-
tempted to calculate how much light falls upon this little earth-
vessel, and they cannot calculate all the light that falls here
because enough rolls off the edges to fill with glory and with
summer unnumbered worlds like ours. In my consciousness of
sin I need every drop of blood the Saviour shed on Calvary ; if
Psalm xlii.l.] THIRSTING FOR GOD. 203
I had not the very last drop I am still conscious of being un-
delivered, I am a soul ill at ease. Herein is the mystery of divine
passion and love, that we can all have the whole, — a mystery,
mayhap a contradiction in words, but a sweet reality in expe-
rience. You could have all the sun. The monarch may have
the whole sun, and the little mendicant far outside the palace can
lie in the sunshine all day. It is not in the power of potentates
to take the whole sun in any selfish way. When they have had
satisfaction of sunlight the meanest beast in the forest can go out
and bathe its face in the sunlight. Nothing less than God will
satisfy the panting soul. We have drunk up all the little streams
and rivers ; we have taken them up as a very little thing, and
still the heart has been sore with thirst. Yet the soul of man
can do with nothing inferior. We know the true God, here
described as the living God ; we cannot do with a deaf deity, we
can have no relation whatever to a merely historical divinity ; we
must have a present God, a present Saviour, a present Spirit, — ■
in us, living in us, abiding in us, supping with us, a night meal,
a hospitality that takes the hideousness out of night.
" For thee, O God." Then for nothing strange. As the water
brooks were made for the chased or panting hart, so God lives
to satisfy the soul of man. There is nothing strange in the rela-
tion ; whatever there is strange in life is in the non-relation or
the unrealised relation between God and the soul. Herein see
the greatness of the soul of man. What does that soul need to
fill it and satisfy it, and quiet it, and give it all its possible con-
sciousness of glory ? It needs the living God. Herein is the
origin of man. We may form opinions about this detailed process
or that, as to a direct creation of the human form out of the dust,
or an evolution of human nature from microscopic germs and
plasms ; so be it, the soul needs God, the soul cries out for God.
Atheists themselves are intermittently religious. Even God-
deniers are in some degree in an unconscious sense God-seekers.
Life is thus a tragedy, a mystery, a self-contradiction, a great
agony ; and sometimes men are more infidel in words than they
are in feeling. Men become angry with themselves, petulant,
self-chafed, and they say things they do not mean in order, as it
were, to goad the soul to say the right thing. If men have had
204 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xlii. i.
no experience of these mysteries, it is not in the power of the
human teacher to bring them to such knowledge. To live we
must die. Here you may judge yourselves by your aspirations :
what do you want ? what do you pant for ? what do you need ?
If you can say, " Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest
that I love thee ; Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest
that I want a higher life, a broader, clearer conception of discipline
and duty and destiny," though you fall seven times a day the
devil shall not rejoice over you ; he shall still say about you,
This man cannot be damned ; I drag him through perdition, and
he comes out praying; I mock him, I disappoint him. I inflict
upon him innumerable and intolerable pains, and no sooner do
I release my hold for one moment than his whole soul bends
itself as if in an attitude of prayer. Thus, let us mock the devil,
and bring glory to God. How can we attain this great position,
realise this sacred relation, but for him who is the Son of man,
the Son of God, our Advocate with the Father, the Daysman who
is able to lay a hand upon both and make reconciliation ? Jesus
revealed the Father, Jesus brought us to the living water. His
sweet voice, all music gathered up into one solemn and pensive
yet resonant tone, says, " If any man thirst" — Lord, we all
thirst ; I thirst, thou wounded Lamb of God ; we all thirst : go on,
we interrupt thee because our thirst is so scorching — " If any
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." That is the
hospitality of love. That is the offer of Heaven.
Psalm xliv. 1.
"Our fathers have told us what work thou didst in their days."
THE GOSPEL OP PROVIDENCE.
SO, we are not inventing a modern providence. The idea
of providence — personal, domestic, and imperial — is not
a new idea ; we have the advantage of immemorial time. You
are fond of antiquity ; you go wild over it in some directions.
Only point out something that is hoary and dateless, and into
what ecstasy people are flung ! I do not ask you to believe in
mythological antiquity, but in historical time. The Hindu
imagination was independent of arithmetic ; in the Hindu
chronicles it is casually mentioned — the historian tells us just
in an incidental way — that one of the kings reigned for the period
of seven-and- twenty thousand years. That is not that kind of
antiquity to which we now call attention. The Psalms are
historical ; they can be traced day by day ; we can go back to
the very time of their writing. They were not written yesterday,
they were written thousands of years ago ; and here the minstrel
says, "Our fathers have told us what work thou didst in their
days, in the times of old." So we are standing upon a line
that is historical, real, verifiable ; and the first truth that stands
up before us is that the idea of providence — personal, real,
individual, secret, tender, gracious — is not an idea of yesterday,
but venerable, immemorial, and we take up the sacred song
this day, and sing it without abatement of spiritual passion or
cooling in any degree of gratitude and zeal.
He who rises to dispute this providence must be either a very
great man or a very little one; there can be nothing common
about him. A man who rises to contradict the centuries ought
to be sworn before he gives evidence; we cannot have any
frivolous chatter upon this great question ; we cannot have
2o6 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xliv. i.
speculations and dreamy suggestions, and partial, lackadaisical
scepticisms ; the man who rises to contradict this testimony must
be sworn. Who is he ? Whence came he ? What is his title
to speak ? How is he credited in the market-place ? With
what authority is he clothed ? If this were a quotation from
mythological writings, if it professed to be a revelation granted
to mankind millions of years ago, we should be lost in the infinite
figures ; but we are dealing with a Book the very ink of which
we can trace; and if men four thousand years ago stood up
armed and strong, and sang the providence of God in loud and
cheerful and grateful and resonant songs, and if to-day we do
not alter a syllable of the hallelujah or the anthem, we have,
at all events, a long and deep historical basis on which to
stand. ^
Providence is a revelation. There is a Gospel of providence
as well as a Gospel of forgiveness. We must enlarge our con-
ception of the term " Gospel " or we shall hinder the progress
of Christian civilisation. The Gospel is not a set of phrases to
be found in certain books only ; it is the mysterious spirit of
the age; it is a light that looks out of historical events, a voice
that sounds in the night-time along all the lines of life ; it is
the morning newspaper; it is the great battle; it is the splendid
victory ; it is the new feeling of confidence that God is, and
is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. The Gospel
is not a word of six letters or of two syllables. We wrong the
Gospel by limiting it to any number of letters. We repeat, as
the result of personal observation, and corroborating in some
feeble degree the grand historical testimony, that there is a
Gospel of providence as certainly as there is a Gospel of redemp-
tion. Is it nothing for you to be assured that the foundations
of your house are strong ? Good news does not take up one
set of words only, good news calls for all great words and noble
sentences, ay, and for all musical instruments, and it says,
"Everything that hath breath announce me. Repeat me, and
let all heaven be filled with the musical thunder." God did
not come into the race a thousand years after it was created ;
the race is in him, its root is in his duration. All things are
under his hand. The Lord reigreth, let the earth rejoice.
Psalm xliv. I.] ZS-^ GOSPEL OF PROVIDENCE. 207
There is a providence of facts. When the Psalmist and the
ancient seers and prophets spoke of the law of the Lord, they did
not confine their observations to that which was written with
pen and ink. They were observers in the ancient time as men
profess to be now. Inductive reasoning is not a little invention
of the day before yesterday ; in. the Bible you have all the
wealth of that reasoning baptised, sanctified, followed up into
glory. The law of the Lord was written in the movement of
nations, in the development of ideas and purposes, in the destina-
tion of the good man, in the issue of all wickedness. The men
sat, and looked, and noted, and wrote memorandum book after
memorandum book, if we may so modernise the incident, and
when they had filled up their paper they said, " This is the law;
this is the point of pressure ; this is the meaning of the secret
behind." Oh that men were wise, that they understood these
things, that they would say that the newspaper is the supplement,
and the daily incident the daily annotation of the one eternal
word I If you were believing only^in something that is written,
that had no counterpart in the actual life around you, and no
confirmation in your own consciousness and experience, you
might be living a highly speculative life ; but if any man in all
the school of wisdom can confirm his doctrine by living proof the
Christian is that man. When we look back upon all the way of
history so far as it is revealed to us, it seems to me to be more
difficult to deny providence than to believe it. It appears to me
that the difficulty is on the side of unbelief. If we had to deal
with a single instance only, the case would be so limited as to
be vexed by much personal contention ; but a whole volume of
history lies wide open. What about all the purposes that have
been countervailed, the schemes that have come to nothing ?
What about those who have dug pits, and fallen into them them-
selves? What about the towers, half built and then thrown
down ? What about the law of checking and limitation and
restriction, the mysterious unwritten law of boundary — thus far
shalt thou come and no farther ? These are not church words ;
these are not chapel expressions ; there they are on the open
page of the world's own history. Looking at them, endeavouring
to connect them and to give them shape and almost personality,
we should feel that the difficulty would be on the side of unbelief
2o8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xliv. i.
and not on the side of faith in view of the proposition that God
is, that God rules.
If we cannot thus prove the objective existence of providence,
we can do something which is equal to it. What kind of men
does this faith produce ? How does the creed come up in the
life ? Let us not fritter away our time in discussing the creed in
words and syllables; let us get away from merely intellectual
contest and skilful encounter of cunning use of words, and ask
this question, What kind of men does this creed make ? How
does the creed come down into the life, and touch it, mould it,
shape and direct it? We are willing to abide by the answer;
to judge the works, as Christ challenged his contemporaries to
do. We cannot find the source, it may be, but let us drink the
water and say what kind it is, and be honest, healthy of soul in
giving our evidence. There is a faith which says, "God is, God
rules, God judges. God will bring all men into account ; nothing
happens by chance; the eternal decree includes the boundary
and the issue of all things." How does that creed operate in the
life ? It ought to make courageous men. Given the conviction
that God has sent me, ordained me, and put his name within me,
and where is fear? There is no night in my marching; the
wilderness is a garden and the desert is a ground full of roses, so
long as that gladdening, inspiring faith burns in my soul. Any
faith that will produce such courage is, presumptively, well
founded, and must, presumptively, have grand issues. Moses
says, " Lord, whom shall I say sent me ? When they ask me
his name, what shall I say ? " If a little name had been given to
the man there had been no access of power in heart or arm ; but
charged with this name, " I AM that I AM," Pharaoh became an
object rather of contempt than of dread. The man came down
upon Egypt from infinite heights ; he did not struggle up to it as
if the situation were greater than his resources. The man in
whom this gracious faith rules ought to be a man in the enjoy-
ment of the deepest peace. He ought to sing night and day,
" God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and
though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea."
There is peace in his heart. "All things work together for good
Psalm xliv. I.] 2 HE GOSPEL OF PROVIDENCE. 209
to them that are good" — that is a gospel — the good never left
alone, the good never left to run any risks, the good pledged from
eternity ; the army that is with it, the Trinity — the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Ghost. Admit that intellectually, and you
will go away and be as troubled as ever; realise it spiritually,
let it enter into the making of the soul, and be the soul's very
protoplasm, the force of the soul, then your peace will flow like a
river; no storm can trouble it; no wind can toss it into more
than momentary agitation. The faith that produces such peace
— and the Christian faith does produce it — is, presumptively,
divine, authoritative, final.
We have thus ventured to trace all these speculations, sugges-
tions, or nominal revelations to providence ; thus, too, would we
test all theology. How does the theology come out in the life ?
To believe in the Triune- God, and to rob our neighbour, is the
vilest blasphemy. Do not affront me with impertinence, and say
you are orthodox, because you believe so much theological ink.
If your life is heterodox " you are of your father, the devil." Let
us try all Christian propositions and doctrines and theologies by
this one grand test — What is the fruit? What is the work?
What is the result? What is the life? And the life being such
as God loves, the faith must be of the same quality; the tree is
never better than the root.
In reading the Biblical description of providence and its opera-
tions in individual histories and imperial developments we feel
no difficulty whatever as to the merely extraordinary or romantic
element which may distinguish the story. Your own life is a
romance. It is only commonplace for you, because you have
come into it a day at a time ; but if you could have taken a seven
years' stride, you would have gone from commonplace into the
incredible, not to say the miraculous. Our light comes to us so
gradually, we grow little by little, and the increments are so
small and scarcely namable, that the sum-total does not surprise
us ; but if you could see your point of origin and your present
point of strength, wealth, influence, comfort, hope, and Christian
assurance, without seeing the intermediate process, what miracle
could exceed the miracle of your own development ? So, when
VOL. XII. 14
210 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. fPsalm xliv. i.
we read of the men who went through the Red Sea, we can
say, each for himself, " So have I." We have fled from Egypt,
and have been pursued by the enemy, and have passed through
seas as upon dry land. If we had come to the story from
without, entirely without sympathy or personal consciousness of
divine realities, we should have called it miracle, romance,
incredible, fable ; but coming to it after forty years' experience,
struggle, difficulty, pain, hardship, loss, joy, and all the wondrous
contradictions which crowd themselves into human life, we read
about the Red Sea as if the story were part of our own life. We
must try to outgrow the miracles, and, by our own daily growth
in grace, so tower above them as to make them commonplaces.
When we read of being fed in the wilderness, a strange glow of
fire warms the heart, for we say, " Surely the man has known
me ; surely he has read my heart. Why, this is my own course."
When he says, " There is a certain tree the branches whereof
will sweeten the bitter waters," we say, " I know it. I have
taken off the branches. I have sweetened the bitter stream, and
that tree has been to me a tree of life." We must not read the
Bible as if it were something that had nothing to do with our life;
we must come from our life back to the Redeemer of it ; then,
by instinctive gratitude, by an inborn music of the soul, our
emphasis will fall into right pressure, and the colour of our
reading will be beautiful as God's rainbows, and our whole utter-
ance of the word will be natural because we have lived it, and in
reading the Bible we are telling our own story.
Providence leads up to redemption. There is no escape along
that line. The God that numbers the hairs of our heads must
be proportionately interested in the salvation of our souls. You
cannot cut off the divine ministry, saying it belongs to this side
of life but not to that. If God care for oxen, there is nothing
in all human imagery of speech that can represent his love of
man. If you admit the numbering of the hairs of your head, you
are bound to go on to the completion of the evidence. Redemp-
tion involves providence; providence suggests redemption. Any
one intervention of the divine finger in human life means, rightly
read, the Cross. To think that God has provided for everything
tut for the forgiveness of sins, that God has been gracious to
Psalm xliv. I.] THE GOSPEL OF PROVIDENCE. 211
the body and forgotten the soul, that God has provided us
with bread for the passing hunger of the days and made no
provision for the inward hunger, the famine that kills the soul— >-
who can believe it ? It is inadmissible in reasoning, not to say
inadmissible in theology.
So, then, we stand in this faith to-day. We do not inherit our
religion ; we personally receive it, and personally repronounce
the faith. Thousands of years ago, men said, " His mercy
endureth for ever ; " to-day men say the same. And they do
not read it out of a book ; it is forced out ot them by the gracious
necessities of gratitude. We are not to be snubbed by men who
have invented some new theory of life for which no man ever
died, and which never cost any man the sacrifice of a night's
sleep. We hide ourselves in the tabernacle of history, and we
enter into that tabernacle through the gateway of our own
consciousness and experience. We are part of a great band of
witnesses ; no merely single voice is heard in this testimony ;
it is a grand, massive, choral utterance of all nations, kindreds,
peoples, and tongues, that God reigneth ; that all that transpires
in his universe is under his eye, and with him are the resources
of wisdom and strength. So, whether we remain here or go
elsewhere, the bounds of our habitation are fixed ; we do not
urge providence, or seek to drive it ; we say to thee, ever-looking,
ever-loving Father, " As thou wilt, here or there, or yonder, only
fix the place, and we will build the altar."
PRAYER.
Almighty God, we want to trust thee ; give us thy Holy Spirit that we may
not fail in the exercise of faith. We are made happy by trust; we are sure
that our lives are in the hands of God, and that all things, how contrary
soever in appearance and momentary conflict, work together for good, if we
be right within. It is this inward part of our nature that is our difficulty.
We can dress the body, but how can we perfect the soul ? It is not in man
that liveth to direct his way or to handle the education of his own spirit ;
we must come to our Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier, God the Father, God
the Son, God the Holy Ghost, and cry mightily unto our Father, saying.
Create in me a clean heart, and renew within me a right spirit. The heart
is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked ; it tells lies to itself; it
is self-deceiving, self-mocking, therefore self-ruining : Lord, save us from
ourselves. Out of the heart proceed all evil things : create in me a clean
heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. When we would do
good, evil is present with us; whilst we pray, we doubt; whilst our eyes
are lifted up to the hills whence cometh our help, they turn aside that
they may glance at the valleys, the temptations, the prizes of time. How
wondrously hast thou made us, and how wondrously have we made our-
selves ! We have lost our Father, we are in the darkness, we are meditating
mischief all the day : create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right
spirit within me. Assure us that the enemy is not dead, that he has but left
us for a season, and will return stronger than ever. When the enemy would
come in like a flood, lift up thy Spirit as a standard against him. Feed us
with the bread of life : Lord, evermore. give us this bread ; then we shall be
stronger than all that can be arrayed against us. Watch our spirit, regard
our heart with special interest, take not thy Holy Spirit from us. Create in
me a clean heart, O God, and renew within me a right spirit. Amen.
Psalm xlv.
[Note. — This is a psalm for a special occasion, that occasion being none
other than the nuptials of an anointed king. The king is described as
beautiful and gracious and blessed for evermore, and as a conqueror whose
objects rre not dominion and glory, but truth, humility, and righteousness ;
he is even described as a divine person, worthy of the name of God ; he is
seated on an everlasting throne, anointed with the oil of gladness, and
received with the strains of harps in ivory palaces. The bride is a king's
daughter, one of a foreign race, beautiful and glorious ; her attendants, are
pure virgins, her children are to be princes in all the earth. As to the par-
ticular king referred to, some have suggested Ahab, others Jehoram ; but the
Psalm xlv. 13.] THE KING' S DAUGHTER. 213
suggestion scarcely needs refutation. The only satisfactory interpretation
of all the terms of the psalm is to be found in its Messianic character. The
daughter of the king is the Church, the attendants of the bride represent
foreign nations brought into willing submission to the Messiah. The
psalm is inscribed " To the chief musician upon Shoshannim," the meaning of
•which word is lilies. This may be the name of the tune to which the psalm
was recited ; or the word may be metaphorical, equivalent to lily-like maidens
or bridesmaids ; and the meaning may be, a psalm to be recited to a melody
adapted to a bridal solemnity. It has been pointed out that a certain
sacredncss attached to the lily ; for example, there was lily-work on the
capitals of the pillars, Jachin and Boaz, and on the brim of the molten sea
(i Kings vii. 19, 22, 26).]
THE KING'S DAUGHTER.
" The king's daughter is all glorious within : her clothing is of wrought
gold " (ver. 13).
THE Psalmist says, " My heart is inditing a good matter."
We should think that he was dictating something to a
writer. That is not the meaning of the word. Literally, My
heart is bubbling all over with a song of loves. Not a song of
love even, but genuine Hebrew, — a song of loves. Different
languages have established their own rights : there is an inde-
pendence as well as a unity of human language. What would
be bad syntax in one language is excellent grammar in another.
The Hebrew will pluralise in its own way, and make grammar.
My heart is springing up, — my heart is like a well, a spring, a
fountain, rising, shooting high into the blue sky, and I must tell
you what I think and feel about the king's daughter. It is an
advantage to listen to a man when he is in his best mood. This
man has no fault to find with the mood in which he is about to
sing ; he feels at his very best. We know what it is to be
dejected and in fear and in weakness, and to be unable to find
words to express our uppermost thought ; and we also know
what it is to have great liberty of speech, as it we knew all
words, and could make more, and could talk on with rising
eloquence, until we had spoken out all that we felt of love and
hope and life.
Let us take it that the man is talking about the Church and
kingdom of Christ. The Psalmists did not always know the
subjects of their own song. There is an unconsciousness that
214 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xlv. 13.
touches the sublimest genius. It is sometimes when we do not
know what we are doing that we are doing most. Men think we
are insane, because they are in cold blood, and we are filled with
the very fire and life of Heaven. The prophets did not know
what they were prophesying ; their words were as strange to
themselves as to those who listened to them; they wondered
what manner of Man and time was signified, as the Holy Spirit
wrought within them the mystery of the evangelical forecast ;
they wondered what was meant by the sufferings of Christ and
by the glory that should follow. Probably the poet did not
know that he was in reality talking about an ideal daughter,
the Church, redeemed, washed with the precious blood of Christ,
made without spot or wrinkle or any such thing — what the apostle
calls a "glorious church," gleaming, burning, effulging at every
point ; a mystery to herself; not conscious of her own beauty, yet
often wondering that the world should stop in fascination to
express wonder and to render homage.
Here are two aspects of the king's daughter — the internal and
the external ; within all glorious, without covered with wrought
gold, — a magnificent congruity, a spiritual miracle of consistency.
" Glorious," not commonplace ; separated from every other
institution or mode of life by a dazzling, gleaming brightness
above the shining of the sun. The Church is not a club, meeting
at regular times, bound by certain agreed stipulations, living a
decent, ordinary, enjoyable life : the Church is a miracle, or she is
nothing ; the Church is glorious, or she has no right to exist. Not
that the Church has already upon the earth realised all her highest
possible glory, but she is living in that direction ; so that no
sun-ray shall be lost upon her, she shall catch all the descending
beams and hold them as an increase of her own brightness.
Because the Church has lost its distinctiveness it has lost its
power. The Master of the Church continually walks up and
down, saying, ** What do ye more than others ? " because it is
in the "more than others" that our Christianity begins. We
have not begun to be Christians whilst we are simply as good as
other people, whilst we are only bap^sed pagans, whilst we are
living upon the husks of moral maxims. We may be regarded
as amiable and useful and kindly and neighbourly, but that is not
Psalm xlv. 1 3.] 2 HE KING ' S DA UGHTER. 2 1 5
Christianity, that has no relation to Christianity, that is often
foisted upon society as a simulation of Christianity. Christianity
is in its 'uniqueness, in its doing things that nobody else ever
thought of doing, in its insanity, its holy, beneficent madness.
Som^ men are not Christians, they are only professors of
Christianity.
'* All glorious," — not one shadow, not one indication of love of
darkness. There is no adulteration in this glory; wherever a
beam of light is present, or wherever a beam of light can
issue forth, that beam of light is visible. " All glorious " in
doctrine, in conduct, in speech, in thought, in the innermost
recesses of the heart — " all glorious within." There the glory
cannot be seen by outward observers, — an internal, spiritual
glory. How neglectful some persons are of out-of-the-way pla^^c:;,
of matters which do not come under public criticism ! How
anxious to be right externally, and how indolent about spiritual
cleanliness and beauty, not to say glory I What a love of
applause 1 what a spirit of ostentation 1 what a decoration for the
passing moment ! The peculiarity of the king's daughter was
that she was good all through and through ; glorious where she
could least be seen, — glorious in her spirit, in her motive, in the
whole conception of life ; just as glorious as if there were not one
human eye to look upon her brightness. We are so prone to do
much that other people may look upon ; we wonder what they
will think of us. Many expenses are incurred to please critics
who mayhap may never bestow a thought upon us. It is our
public attitude, our social relation, our neighbourly environment,
that we think about. Under certain limitations such solicitude is
right ; but it is worse than a mistake, if it be put in substitution
for spiritual, internal, invisible beauty and brightness. Probably
the poet only meant that the innermost chamber of the bride was
a beautiful room ; his thought may not have risen above that
comparatively mean conception : but the higher thought, trans-
lated into the idealism of the Church, is that the Church of the
living Christ is without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, a
glorious Church — glorious within.
Why? Because of a conscious realisation of the divine
2i6 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xlv. 13.
presence. Have we made our preparation for the Chief of
Guests ? Has the housewife made no arrangement to receive her
visitor with becoming care and distinction ? Will any place do
for one whose head is illuminated with divine light, whose heart
is filled with the love of Calvary, whose presence is an indication
ot an ineffable and immortal kingliness ? The king's daughter
will receive the King in a prepared chamber ; she will say, This
habitation must be made worthy of him ; he himself is glorious,
and such glory as I can supply must be furnished against the
time of his coming. So, who would receive God into an unpre-
pared heart? We must make the heart-house as worthy as
we can of the King's coming. This we can do — we can pray God
the Holy Ghost to make us what we ought to be, to take posses-
sion of our heart, to cleanse it, purify it, elevate its every impulse,
and consecrate it as the guest-chamber in which God himself
shall abide with us. Consciousness of the divine presence
implies conscious communion with God ; taking ourselves up to
our highest estate ; sharing the very thought and passion of
divine love, — a marvellous transfiguration of our lower selves into
our ideality. Mystery of mysteries is this, that the mortal can
talk with the Eternal ; that the creature can commune with the
Creator ; that a life so low that presently it will be cut down and
burned like grass in the oven can go right up to eternal Kingliness
and say, Let us commune together, concerning the mystery of
being and the mystery of destiny, the mystery of conduct and
the mystery of service : O Eternal King, let me, poor, poor me,
talk with thee a long time ! Out of this must come a growing
solicitude to be transformed into the divine likeness. When we
can see God we can be satisfied with no other beauty ; all other
beauty then sinks into its right relation, and becomes but a dim
type or emblem of the ineffable loveliness ; having seen God,
we can bear the sight of nothing lower, except that which is of
kindred quality, and that which we can help to the level to which
the Holy Spirit has exalted our own souls. Given the conscious
divine presence, conscious communion with God, conscious desire
to be transformed into his likeness, and you have given, if not
noontide, yet heavenly dawn ; such consciousness shall grow like
the advancing sun, until it has reached the zenith of its power
and splendour.
Psalm xlv. 13.] 2 HE KING' S DAUGHTER. 21;
What is the king's daughter without ? Look at her clothing ,
that will answer the inquiry, — " Her clothing is of wrought
gold." The internal glory is proved by the external beauty.
There is a clothing which we are called upon to admire, — the
clothing of the king's daughter is ot wrought gold : no dress can
be too beautiful, if it express a beautiful character. You cannot
be too lovely in your costume (assuming that you can afford it)
if the costume proclaim the man. Say frankly, is there any
irony so palpable and detestable as that represented by an ex-
pensively dressed fool ? There is an incongruity which amounts
to wickedness. Some persons are nothing but clothes. A man
has no right to. make himself a palpable self-contradiction, — he
is a whited sepulchre. No bad man has a right to wear a good
coat, — he is a liar. No bad man has a right to put a flower in
his button-hole, — he spoils the flower, he dishonours the summer,
he is a living, and ought to be an instructive, paradox. If you
see a flower in the garment of a bad man you should cry, " Stop
thief!" Do not imagine that flowers have no feeling, that nature
would just as soon decorate a fool as a philosopher. Nature is
God's ; nature bears a divine stamp and seal ; nature is but an
emblem, and if the emblem be upon the wrong person what
mischief may ensue ! Who can calculate the effect of a paradox
so palpable and so mischievous ?
In the case ot the king's daughter we have a beautiful con-
gruity. Because she is all glorious within, she has a right to a
covering of wrought gold. It would be wrought gold, even if
the goldsmith had never touched it. She might be in poverty,
yet her poverty would be as an image ot wrought gold. We
are not to be too literal in our construction of these sentences, —
there is a transfiguring process of soul upon cloth, if you will
have it so ; there is a possibility that a carpenter's raiment may
become white and glistering. The internal light illumines the ex-
ternal robe. The wise soul has a wise face. The foolish observer
may not see it, because he judges by false or transient canons ;
but there never yet was a wise man that had not a wise counten-
ance, a great man that had not somehow a great face. There
never was a good man that did not vindicate his goodness exter-
nally, in some way, in some measure ; not always instantaneously,
2i8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xlv. 13.
but people have said concerning a good man, " The longer you
know him the more you love him ; he may not be very taking
at first, but, oh, what he is to rest upon ! He is slow of speech,
but having given his word he has given his soul." So if the
king's daughter had been from a worldly point of view poor,
yet there is a grace of poverty when it is associated with internal
pureness, and large wisdom, and burning aspiration after God
and God's eternity. Here is a man who has been a long time
in prayer, he comes down the hill as morning might come down
the quickly illuminated mountain ; speak to the man, and he
wists not that his face doth shine. It is not a painted splendour,
it is not a decoration brought from some remote market of the
world ; it is a shining that comes from within, because the man
has been enjoying that consciousness of the divine presence,
and that consciousness of divine communion, of which we have
just spoken. This is the beauty of heaven ; this is not formal
beauty; this is the light that springeth from within, which will
be as beauteous in the morning as it is at night, in the winter
as in the summer : how trying soever the circumstances through
which the man may pass, he will throw a sacred radiance upon
his whole condition, and make a space for himself by the power
of wisdom.
The costliest environment is balanced by the character, and
brought into harmony by the soul. Sometimes we are conscious
of incongruity as between the man and his own estate. We
wonder whether this estate has been come by honestly ; it is
bigger than the owner, it overwhelms him, it is his one subject;
he is always surveying his own land and making a new map of
his own estate. We say. Who is this man ? and how came he
to have all these tens of thousands of acres, and all these various
palaces ? — one in the mountains, one at the seaside, one in the
metropolis, one far away which he calls his hunting-place, with
a garden miles long of heather that is ashamed of its owner.
This is palpable and shocking incongruity. Sometimes we have
seen a man surrounded by estates, and have felt that the man
was greater than the property ; we have said. What a soul this
man has 1 Listen to his thoughts, hear his conversation ; presently
he will rise into prayer, or utter himself in sacred song, or speak
Psalm xlv. 13.] THE KING' S DAUGHTER. aig
lovingly and redeemingly about the poor and those who have
no helper; and then the environment falls aw^ay into its right
perspective, and we say, Would God this man owned the whole
world ! for then the poor would be made to rejoice, and the sad
of heart would know what a friend they had. If there is any
disparity it should be on the spiritual side, so that we shall say
concerning a man, however much he has, he ought to have
more ; he is a faithful steward, a generous administrator :
appoint him the guardian of society. In the costume as described
by the poet we have no contradiction, no irony, no sense of
incongruity; we have a massive, simple, beautiful, beneficent
consistency. Think of a man who has plenty of clothes and
no ideas, a well dressed body and a naked soul I Pity him.
Think of a man who has a large wardrobe, and no library, no
course of reading, no education at home ! Another wardrobe !
he says ; never Another book 1 That is the man to describe
as poor. Think of a man who has a glutton's appetite and a
miser's soul I
What is the miracle that Jesus Christ wants to work ? It is
the miracle of congruity, the miracle of harmony, the miracle
of music ; it is to make us internally right that he may make
us externally beautiful and noble. He will not begin at the
external point ; he does not care about our manners, he cares
about our souls : " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and
renew within me a right spirit ! " Then the hand shall be clean,
and the physical form itself shall bear evidence that even we
carry the stamp of the divine substance.
PRAYER.
Lord, increase our faith. Faith is the gift of God ; Lord, give unto us such
faith as overcomes the world. We would live the faith-life, that upper-
most, divinest life, that trusts all to God, that has no selfish will, that gains
its life by losing it. Gladly would we enter into the mystery of this process.
Whoso would gain his life shall lose it, and whoso would lose his life for
Christ's sake shall find it. We would get by giving, we would grow by
serving, we would become refined by the loss which is created by suffering.
Thou hast made us in thine own image, but we have covered up thy per-
sonality with immeasurable deceit. Lord, cause us to sustain a great loss,
to shed all that we have done ourselves, until thine own presence shines
forth within us, and we become as those who have been transformed.
Show us that man can hold nothing in his hands. Canst thou deliver us
from this great fallacy, that we can really heap up unto ourselves anything
and assure it ? Lord, if thou canst work this miracle of faith in us, we
would say, Let this be the accepted time, and the day of salvation ; we would
be rid of all this care, anxiety, and foolish solicitude, and would fall into
God's hands, assured that all things work together for good in reply to
human love. Thou didst never disappoint the earnest heart; the soul that
burned for thee was alwaj's gratified by a revelation of thy presence : Lord,
increase our faith. We would be rid of these senses which deceive us and
mock us every day, and make fools of us seven times a week ; and we would
live in the soul, in the spirit, in the upper nature, dwelling and walking
and living with God. This desire is created in us by the Holy Spirit, the
Paraclete, the very gift of the Cross of Christ. Once we had no such
desire, the world was enough, and time sufficient, and what our own hands
could do was more than enough ; but now we see how little all things are,
how great is the future, how immeasurable is heaven, how transcendent and
precious is love. Thou art taking us through the valleys of life : we are
weary of the long walk; give us strength that we may finish the mile or
two yet remaining, without impious reproach or fault-finding with God.
But the way is long, and the lights are uncertain, the misery is positive,
and the occasional enjoj?ment is never enough. Yet the valleys are of thy
making, time is thy road into eternity; we would accept thy dispensations,
and murmur not. If thou canst find any joy for us in this place of graves,
and in this air loud with lamentation, good Lord, neglect us not in the time
of our best desires. Show us that we know nothing, yet show us that the
veil which keeps us from perfect knowledge is very thin and may in one
moment be dissolved, and we may be face to face with God. In this high
expectancy keep our souls, then we shall have no time for folly, no taste
Psalm 1.] RELIGION NOTHING WITHOUT MORALITY. 221
for wickedness, and no relish for the things that do not minister to the
soul's life. The Lord expel all evil by the incoming of all good ; and because
of the presence of burning and purifying love may all things unholy be
banished or consumed. Thou hast given us a long schooling, — in the cradle,
in helpless infancy, in the school where everything was difficult, in the
house where will clashed with will, and the heart was often stung with
disappointment ; thou hast also trained us in the market-place, where man
is endeavouring to outwit his fellow day by day, and boasting himself when
he has accomplished his nefarious purpose. All this is hard upon us, the
devil is always against the soul, and those that would help the spirit are
often in such cloudy distances that we cannot realise their ministry. Yet
it is all well ; the prophets said so, and the apostles ; our fathers and mothers
taught us so when we knew little or nothing of life; now this thing is
wrought into our very thought, so that we constantly say. It will be well
in the latter end, though the beginning was cloudy and the beginning was
small. Lord, help every man to do his day's work well, to carry his load
as if the Lord himself had just put the burden upon the weakening back;
and give every one courage to sa^^, Juc^.-e not yet, nor to-morrow, but on the
third day behold the revelation ot God. We thank thee for all that helps
us, for ever} thing that gives us even momentary delight ; for the household
hearth, the warm hospitable fire : we bless thee for any inch of garden we
have, enough to hold one flower, which is the beginning and the pledge of
paradise. For all musical voices, and tender ministries, and friendships that
heal us when our hearts are sore, for all the thousand elements that point
towards reconstruction and immortality, we bless thee as for so many angels"
Pity us for our lost estate; thou who hast made the day hast also made the
night ; thou knowest the tragedy of darkness, thou knowest the powers of
evil, there is no fire in perdition that thou hast not known, and there is no
temptation in the air rending it and tearing it with cruel force which thou
hast not measured, and which thy Son our Saviour has not undergone. Help
us to escape the little, the narrow, the mean, and the foolish, and to live
in the infinite and the eternal. We pray at the Cross, because there it is
good to pray, — there is the angel of purity, there is the angel of pardon,
there is the angel that keeps the gate of heaven. Amen.
Psalm 1.
RELIGION NOTHING WITHOUT MORALITY.
THIS is a psalm of Asaph. This is the first psalm of Asaph
found in this section of the Psalter. Every man must
speak in his own natural style, and the style of this leader of
choir, who was also a poet, is a style of supreme loftiness and
majesty, which would not become the narrower capacity, the
lower intellect, of meaner men. We must join him where we
can in this song of thunder. He will affright us, as majesty
aflrights some visions; yet he will take care that before the
222 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm L
thunderstorm ceases there shall be something we can gaze upon
with delight, and listen to with spiritual gratification and profit.
We should not always be talking about God as little children
talk. It is sweet now and again to listen to a speech that has
nothing in it but words of one syllable; that speech is called
simple, intelligible, and useful : without doubting that criticism,
we must always in our religious conceptions make room for
vastness, majesty, and ineffable glory. The God that made the
little glowworm also built the heavens with stars and constella-
tions. Both views of God are right. Neither is complete without
the other. Without simplicity we should have no real intelli-
gence, and without grandeur we should not touch the highest
moods and points of reverence. Asaph was nothing if not
magnificent. He now pictures God under three names as coming
forth to judge the earth. The divine presence shines "out of
Zion," which is called " the perfection of beauty." It is not the
divine person, but the divine presence, that shines. Many have
seen the presence of God who have never seen his person. We
are to make a great distinction between personality and presence.
Personality means figure, visible attitude, form that can be in
some measure described ; but presence may be influence, inspira-
tion, and enlargement and purification of religious consciousness;
so that a man shall say, Lo, God is here, and I knew it not. The
knowledge of God without a vision of his personality is all that
is permitted to us in these initial schools of time.
" Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence : a fire shall
devour before him, and it shall be very tempestuous round about
him " (ver. 3). When he came to give the law, he brought all
the lightning with him ; and when he comes to see what has
become of the law, he brings that same lightning back again.
Wherever you have to deal with law you have to deal with
lightning. Lightning has no mercy; lightning has no sentiment;
lightning is no poet, though it writes nothing but poetry. When
the Lord came to Sinai to give the law, he burned and thundered ;
when he comes now to judge the earth, he comes in fire and
tempest, and manifold yet musical uproar. This is the consistency
of the divine movement, this is the wondrous harmony of the
action which we call law. We shall be able by these phenomena
Psalm 1.] RELIGION NOTHING WITHOUT MORALITY. 223
to identify God, and to say with sureness of conviction, Yea, this
is he who came to Sinai, — we remember that very lightning ; we
heard that very thunder ; these are the smokings that rose up
before us like an infinite cloud ; this is the feeling of weirdness
which made us say to Moses, Oh, do not let God speak to us
himself any more, but speak thou to us in his name. We shall
know the heavenly signs when they reappear.
Who will God have for witnesses ? Suppose he shall make
an accusation, and shall not be able to establish it by proof, what
then ? Asaph provides against that contingency : — " He shall
call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may
judge his people " (ver. 4). That is to say, he will empanel all
heaven and all earth as a jury, and they shall decide what his
course of providence has been. The blue sky shall speak for
God, the green earth shall not hold its tongue when God's
judgments are being criticised by men ; the heaven and the
earth will speak up for him, and will say. He nourished us, he
never neglected us, to us his goodness was daily and continual,
and we have no reason to complain of the divine administration.
The stars will say so, and all the systems and constellations,
and the whole stellar pomp of the invisible and immeasurable
universe, shall come down to say, God is good. And the earth,
with meaner voice, but testimony equally clear, shall say, He
never neglected me, he sent his sunshine and his rain, his dew
and his living air, and all the ministries of heaven seemed to
nourish and comfort me, and I rolled on through my springs and
summers, and autumns and winters, conscious that God himself
was swinging me like a censer round the sun. Nature will not
be dumb when God judges the earth.
"Gather my saints together unto me" — my pious ones, my
separated ones; not only the good, but those that are not so
good ; the good minus, the sincere but mistaken souls : let all
come together that started with me in covenant. " Saints " is a
sweet word; it ought to mean holy ones; it ought to signify
hearts that are sanctified, purified, refined ; souls in which there
is no speck of evil. It will mean that some day. Words have
yet to come to the fruition of their significance. We must use the
224 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm 1.
words now, but they are oftentimes empty vessels, or vessels not
half filled ; but the time will come when they will contain all their
meaning, and will vindicate their right to have been in human
language. At present we do not use half our own dictionary
words. The lexicon of every nation is at least twice toQ large
for merely daily use. Learned men want some of the words,
txperts require other terms, but the common people use probably
jne-tenth of all the language of their nation. But the time will
come when every word will be wanted as a vessel into which
God will pour meaning, and this word " saints " must stand until
that time. There is little in it now, but its whole capacity will
be filled up when God comes to realise his own purpose in human
creation and progress. , '•
Now the Lord calls before him two sets of people, — first, the
sincere but mistakren souls that keep on grinding eternally and
doing nothing. They live in all ages, — the ceremonialists, the
ritualists ; the people who begin at a certain hour and go on
until a certain hour, and never cease, and never seem to tire :
and yet they move without removing; they are in continual
action, but they never make any progress?. "Hear, O my people,
and I will speak. ... I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices
or thy burnt-offerings, to have been continually before me"
(vers. 7, 8). The meaning is : I have nothing to say against
what you have done in the matter of sacrifices and burnt-
offerings ; you have been most punctual. The word used here
in English is " continually," literally, daily : not a single day had
been omitted or neglected by these poor mistaken souls. They
were mere grinders, simple slaves, repeaters of customs ; not
entering into the meaning, spirit, thought, poetry of the action ;
always doing something and not knowing why they were doing
it. That sentence would seem to be the history of a good deal of
modern piety. Understand what the Lord says to these simple,
dreary, mistaken ceremony-finders ; in effect, he says, Now hear
me : I am not going to tell you that your sacrifices have been too
few, or that your burnt-oflferings have been neglected ; you have
been punctual, regular, daily in your service of the altar : but
the spirit of your work you have never seen for a moment j you
serve God with the hand, and you think that is enough.
Psalm 1.] RELIGION NOTHING WITHOUT MORALITY. 225
Now comes a statement which may be easily mistaken : —
"I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he goats outof thy folds. For
every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I
know all the fowls of the mountains : and the wild beasts of the field are
mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee : for the world is mine, and
the fulness thereof Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of
goats?" (vers. 9-13).
Yet this very same Lord did, according to chapter and verse, fix
himself every sacrifice and every oblation, and now he would
seem to talk as if these were human inventions, and as if his
nostrils were offended by the unsavoury odour of the shambles
of the Church. That is our English ignorance ; we do not under-
stand intimately the language in which this declaration was made.
Very often in the Hebrew tongue things are treated with con-
tempt when the speaker simply means to put them into a subor-
dinate or right relation to some other thing. When God says,
" I will not take your bullocks," he does not mean to say that the
offering of bullocks was not according to the Levitical ritual ; he
means to say, I will not take them alone; I must have them, but
unless they are given in the right atmosphere and with the right
thought and with the right motive, I will have nothing to do with
them. No bullock can satisfy the desire, the infinite solicitude of
the divine heart. So there are those who tell us that God always
seems to reject blood, and reject sanguinary sacrifices of every ^
kind, and they will even quote this text, " Will I eat the flesh of
bulls, or drink the blood of goats ? " and other texts of kindred
import, in which the Lord would seem to disown his own ritual,
and to put away from him the very things the Church had
appointed. There is no such meaning in the text; the simple
significance is this, — Put things in their right places; understand
that when I ask you to sacrifice a bullock to me, it is not
the bullock I want, but that which is signified by the oblation,
and if that be wanting the bullock is a vain offering. There is no
enlargement of the religious consciousness in these statements.
The Jew was always a Jew, and never grew to be anything else ;
he kept to his bullock slain, and to his offering of goats and sheep
and pigeons and doves ; but he lost the spirit of the ritual,
and having lost the spirit, the ritual itself became a dead letter,
an empty and unacceptable tribute. That is where we stand
VOL. XII. 15
226 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm 1.
to-day. Have I not been to church ? have I not sung the
requisite number of hymns ? have I not gone through all the
stipulated arrangements of ecclesiastical life ? have I not been
properly attired 1 have I not been faithful to the ritual ? To all
these questions v^^e might from a literal point of view give a
satisfactory answer, and yet we might be utterly impious and
absolutely worse than infidels. That is what the Church has to
understand. No man can pride himself upon his ecclesiastical
diary, referring to it day by day, and saying, I was punctual
at church ; notwithstanding the inclemency of the weather, there
I was; I performed every function, I subscribed to every charity;
I have been most regular and most conscientious in all these
matters. Probably so ; and yet the Lord says. Take them all
away ! I did not want you at church on a wet day ; I did not
accept your presence, even considering the inclement weather;
you did not bring your soul to the work, and therefore all that
is external, functional, and arbitrary must go for nothing, though
it is good in itself, but it becomes worthless when the spirit is
withdrawn from it, when the music of love is no longer heard
in the language of eulogium. So we are all destroyed together ;
not only the Jews but the Gentiles go down in this thunderstorm.
We are often at church when we do not want to be there ; we
often do things of a religious kind simply because somebody else
will know if we did not perform the duty : if we really and
truly had our own way we would do things very differently,
and we only obey the genius of custom, or pay the tribute of
public decency and method ; in our souls we would rather be
in a place of amusement than in a place of religious observance.
Then the Lord says. Do I want your church-going ? do I accept
your hymn-singing ? am I a lover of your psalms ? Not that he
is condemning these things in themselves, they are right and
they are necessary ; but if they be offered as so much external
tribute divested of music and piety, spiritual refinement and
religious reality, then the Lord pours his contempt upon the
silver vessels of his own altar. Who are these people to whom
the Lord is now speaking ? Perfectly mistaken souls ; persons
who mistake routine for real service ; persons v/ho suppose that
you can keep a clock right by moving the hands. These people
flood the world. It is next to impossible to drive out of a man's
Psalm 1.] RELIGION NOTHING WITHOUT MORALIIY. 227
head the fallacy that he can keep a clock right simply by moving
the fingers, — you cannot get him into the inside of the machine ;
no, he will put on the clock, he will put it back, he will
manipulate the face, instead of attending to the internal machinery.
Nobody could be more regular than these poor souls. They did
every part of their duty, and yet never did any part of it. This
is the contradiction of the moral nature, that a thing shall be
done, yet not done ; a thing shall be continued, completed, and
finished, and yet never started at all. How so ? Thus : God
does not want the bullock any more than he wants the modern
psalm ; he wants the heart represented by either of them,
according to the dispensation under which we live.
Therefore he says (ver. 14), " Offer unto God thanksgiving."
How much is this expression mistaken ! — as who shall say, God
wants none of your ritualism, be it even simple church-going
or simple psalm-singing ; God wants to have nothing whatever
to do with that : he wants moral sacrifice, moral obedience ; and
as for all your so-called functions and duties, they are worthless.
That is not the reading of the Psalms, that is not the reading of
the law of God, that is not a proper construction of the spirit
and gospel of Christ. A man may keep the Sabbath, and yet
not keep it ; then the Lord says. Your Sabbaths are a burden to
me, and an offence. Men therefore quote such passages, and say,
See how the Lord regards Sabbaths and feasts and new moons
and appointed fastings or banquetings; he says, Away with
them ! Yes, he does, and yet in your sense he does not, would
be my reply : he likes any man who keeps the new moon or
the new feast or the appointed fast, and he says, Good soul,
I accept what you are doing, though it be all superstitious, because
you not only do this, but you live accordingly ; you say. Even
this superstitious rite has a high meaning, and my soul must
express in its sweetness and charity, in its love of pureness, what
these things symbohcally imply. If a child should pluck a hand-
ful of flowers, and bring them to God's altar and say. These are
thine ; may I lay them here ? God will say, Yes, if thou wilt live
the flower- life, if thou wilt root thyself in God, if thou wilt take
upon thee all the beauty of his sunshine, if thou wilt emit all the
fragrance of his presence and action in the soul ; if not, take away
228 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm 1.
these flowers. Does God then contemn the flowers ? No ; he
contemns their misuse : the bullock is right, the psalm-singing is
right, yet they are both wrong if the soul is wrong. Such
construction of the divine language enables us to retain all
holy ritual, especially retain the ineffably blessed Cross of Christ
in all the significance of its agony and blood, — because we rise
by the action of the Holy Ghost to a proper conception of the
meaning of that priestly emblem.
Then the Lord, even in the lips and visions of Asaph, doubly
poet, becomes condescending, gentle, and kind, saying, " And call
upon me in the day of trouble : I will deliver thee, and thou shalt
glorify me." Literally, My glory is in thy salvation ; when I
glorify myself, it is by saving thy people. The Lord is not
glorified by having infinite tribute paid to him because he is
majestic j he is glorified when we say to him. Lord, I was little,
and thou didst make me great; I was lost, and thou didst find me;
I was a poor blind wanderer in the wilderness, and thou didst
come after me and save me; and this I will tell to all the world,
saying. Come, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he
hath done for my soul. Thus is God glorified ; not in being
offered the bouquets of his universe, but by living so as to
show men that all we are and have that is holy and good is from
the Lord.
How sweet is the blue after the great thunderstorm f Oh, how
it trembles! how it vibrates! how it is almost a kind of worldless
music ! all the welcomer because of the uproar through which we
have just passed : *' Call upon me in the day of trouble." Thy
cloud is only a mile high, but God's heaven is infinite in altitude.
" I will deliver thee " — thee, the single, the little, the one, the
only, insignificant according to the world's reckoning. "And thou
shalt " by thy deliverance " glorify me," for there will be another
soul to say, I was lost and am found.
Then the tone changes. In verse i6 the Lord is full of anger :
he repels the wicked. Up to this point he has been speaking to
the mistaken ; now he turns upon the wicked, and all heaven is
dark as manifold midnight : — " Unto the wicked God saith **
and then comes such a storm of interrogation and rebuke and
Psalm 1.] RELIGION NOTHING WITHOUT MORALITY. 229
repudiation as to constitute a noble commentary on the character
of God. This charge is principally notable as showing how
character deteriorates. He is speaking to priests who are cloaked
hypocrites. He says, " When thou sawest a thief, then thou
consentedst with him," saying, If you will steal and divide the
profit with me not a word shall be said about the process ; there
is room enough under my cloak to cover you. " Thou givest thy
mouth to evil," literally. Thou allowest the devil to borrow thy
mouth, so that the devil shall come behind thy Hps and talk out
all his lies and blasphemy, as under a priestly personality and
guise. *♦ Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother ; thou
slanderest thine own mother's son." Thus a man cannot be
wrong with God and right with his own brother. A man cannot
forget to pray, and yet be just to his own son. A man cannot
live a bad life, and leave an equitable will. He may think it is
equitable, he may satisfy his own depraved conscience about it ;
but you cannot be wrong religiously and right humanly. Your
own wills will testify against you ; and as for speech, you would as
soon speak against your own flesh and blood as speak about the
veriest stranger on the face of the earth. All sacred relations go
down when the piety of the soul towards God becomes corrupt.
" Thou slanderest," — in Arabic, Thou givest a thrust. Its corre-
sponding or equivalent word is in the Greek " scandal," both
words meaning that which causes a man to stumble or to fall.
A scandal is a falling. Here you have the very priests of God
causing their own flesh and blood to fall ; here you have men
that saw them pray, setting something before an unsuspecting
fellow-man that he may in the darkness tumble over it, and then
they will run to help him, or probably run away to tell what a
scandal has been created in the Church. These men first make
the scandals, and then report them; first thrust at their brother,
and then tell others that he has fallen, apostatised, and divested
himself of every claim to confidence or consideration. The
charge goes further. God forbore ; he did not strike the fools
with lightning at once ; and they misconstrued his very patience.
They said, God is approving our policy ; not one gleam of light-
ning have I seen, not one growl of thunder have I heard, as if
God were in anger or in trouble : God is looking on with appro-
bation,— " Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as
230 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm 1.
thyself." Now when he comes to judgment, he says, " Consider,
lest I tear you in pieces." Do not misconstrue God's providence ;
do not say. The bad man prospers, therefore God is bad ; do not
say that, because an evil policy has succeeded, therefore provi-
dence has stamped it with the seal of approbation ; the voice
thundering along the heavens and through all the corridors of
history is this : I have forborne, I have had patience ; but now
consider, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces. He shall
dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel, he shall rend them
limb from limb, and there shall be none to deliver. Yet the
Lord could not finish his psalm in this tone, so he says he that
ordereth his conversation aright he will bless, and he will accept
his good behaviour as a tribute to the divine glory. " Conversa-
tion " means conduct. The apostle says, " We have our con-
versation in heaven," literally. We have our citizenship in heaven.
The reference is not to speech, for there are men who have a gift
of cunning phrase, and could talk piety all the day. This word
" conversation " means conduct, discipline, attention to the spirit
and expression of life, and he that ordereth his life aright shall
see the salvation of God and bring glory to heaven. That is our
duty. Now is our opportunity. We are helpless, but God is
almighty. On thy power, O Holy Spirit, would we evermore
confidently and gratefully rely.
Psalm Ixi.
1. Hear my cry O God ; attend unto my prayer.
2. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is over-
whelmed : lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
3. For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the
enemy.
4. I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy
wings. Selah.
5. For thou, O God, hast heard my vows : thou hast given me the heritage
of those that fear thy name.
6. Thou wilt prolong the king's life : and his years as many generations.
7. He shall abide before God for ever : O prepare mercy and truth, which
may preserve him.
8. So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever, that I may daily perform
my vows,
WORSHIP AND CONFIDENCE.
'Hear my cry, O God ; attend unto my prayer" (ver. l),
THE Book of Psalms illustrates in a most varied and striking
manner the religious side of human life. Setting aside
for the moment all theories of inspiration, and indeed ignoring
inspiration altogether, we have a book full of the most passionate
and reverent utterances addressed to a Being supposed to be
worthy of all homage and to be the fountain of all blessing.
This we have simply as a matter of fact, and no history of the
human mind would be complete which omitted the most explicit
notice of this circumstance. It will be observed, too, that the
Psalmists and suppliants -seldom allow the slightest doubt to
mar the purity and wholeness of their worship ; God is present,
— close at hand, — brighter than light, clothed with power, girded
with majesty ! Sometimes there is familiarity, as of friend
talking with friend ; sometimes there is a cry of pain, as if God
had turned away his face; sometimes a moan of contrition, as
if penitence were rending the heart ; sometimes a shout of
triumph, as if the observer had caught the King's smile. Yet,
232 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixi.
throughout the whole, all is intensely religious. In passing
from page to page of this book we pass as it were through the
aisles of a temple, or through solemn cloisters where men are
engaged in prayer.
Let us dwell upon this side of the book as affording the most
impressive evidence of the intense Religiousness of the human
heart ; and in doing so we feel that there is no chasm between
the ancient Psalmists and ourselves. Their words, stripped of
all local references, might have been our own ; they express
the common passions of the heart ; they set to music the most
elevated feelings of the world. The very first words of this
psalm have often been wrung from our own spirits ; in the
troubled night, in the doubtful day, in affliction, in disappoint-
ment, and sometimes even in joy, we too have said, " Hear my cry,
O God ; attend unto my prayer." Any other words would not
have been equal to the feeling of the moment ; they would have
been cold, narrow, barren, — unworthy of the soul's paroxysm
or ecstasy. In the highest spiritual moods we realise our kinship
with the whole world. We know all men when we kneel in
worship ; the Mohammedan is no longer a stranger to us, nor
are men who use gestures and expressions which we cannot
adopt. Centrally, we are one; the Great Interpreter, to whom
all languages are but variations of one speech, knows what the
heart is saying, and sees in worship what can be seen in no
other exercise of the soul, — sees the unity and moral identity
of all men. In the first verse of this psalm it is not the Jew,
but the man, that speaks. The same idea can be found in all
languages. When David speaks thus, he speaks for the whole
world.
There is no doubt the most intense Personality in the petition ;
it is my cry, it is iny prayer. What then ? Even when the
man individualises himself most carefully, he does but mingle
most familiarly with all other men. Picture the scene; see
David separating himself from the companionship of his most
trusted friends, seeking out the most obscure retirement, kneeling
alone in some deeply shadowed forest or in the cleft of a far-ofi
rock ; yet the moment he says, " Hear my cry, O God," he gives
Psalm Ixi.] WORSHIP AND CONFIDENCE. 233
expression to the sigh of the universal heart. But we cannot
be indifferent to the pathetic aspect of this petition. Though all
men pray, yet each man has his own prayer. The heart has its
own way of telling its own tale, and cannot be satisfied with
paraphrase or generalisation. With minuteness which cuts it
as a sharp instrument, the heart must tell all its sins, and set
forth in order its troubles, its plagues, and its high desires ;
with brokenness of speech, which is often the most perfect of
eloquence, it must recite the number of its failures, and tell of
all its groping and stumbling along the path of life. No man
will it accept as a hired advocate ; no voice could do it justice ;
it must utter tny cry, and my prayer, and where it cannot find
words it will heave the sigh or the groan which asks God to
be his own interpreter. We may have great helps in prayer,
the spirit may accept the choicely wise and tender words of other
men; yet there is a point at which the heart breaks away to
hold secret intercourse with the Father and Saviour of men.
" From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is over-
whelmed : lead me to the rock that is higher than I " (ver. 2).
This is the voice of an exile, — a man far from the city which
he loves most ; yet even at the extremity of the land he says
he will cry unto God. Why not ? God can give the exile a
home 1 Wherever God reveals himself in loving pity and all
the riches of his grace, the soul may take its rest, knowing that
no lion shall be there, neither shall any ravenous beast go up
thereon. David cried from the end of the landl We have
cried from the same extremity. By processes too subtle for us
to comprehend, God has often caused our misfortunes to become
our blessings. While we stood at the centre our souls were
unsteady ; but when we were driven to the outside, far away
to some bleak place where the cutting winds struck us, and the
stranger made us a gazing-stock and a reproach, we turned
towards the holy hill and desired to be led to the high rock.
Who can say how much of our wealth we owe to our poverty ?
Who can tell how trouble has been the minister of God, sent
to show us the way to great joy ? David said that his heart
was overwhelmed, — what a strong expression I Great floods
had broken upon it ; strong tempests had poured their fury upon
234 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm bd.
his spirit ; night and day the storm had laid siege to his heart ;
for long weeks he had been unable to make himself heard
through the roar of the assault, and when there was a lull in
the wind, he said "my heart is overwhelmed." Does sorrow
estrange him from us, so that we cannot understand his speech ?
Is the word " overwhelmed " not in our vocabulary? We know
few words better ! We have often seen the ominous cloud
gather ; it has spread into a great blackness ; a few drops have
been suddenly lashed against the panes, and then with terrific
violence the floods have come, shower on shower, river on river,
wild winds whirling the seas with terrific force against our
dwelling-place until our home was ruined, our pride broken
down, and the last joy savagely engulfed. Oh, the roar ; the
cold, pitiless, hollow roar ! There was a sound of mockery in
it, and a sound of doom ; it was a voice without speech, a
desolation more desolate than death. No man of overwhelmed
heart is a stranger to us. Tears talk all languages. David
would be at home with us to-day I
In the midst of the Psalmist's trouble there rises an aspiration,
— "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." The self-helpless-
ness expressed in this prayer moves our entire sympathy.
"Lead me," — what a blind man who had wandered from the
accustomed path would say ; " lead me," — what a lame man
would say who had fallen by reason of his great weakness;
"lead me," — what a terrified man would say who had to pass
along the edge of a bottomless abyss. It is in such extremities
that men best know themselves. Before the floods they account
themselves as gods, but afterwards they feel themselves to be
but men. David wished to be led to the rock ; he wished to
stand firmly, to stand above the flood-line, to have rest after so
great disquietude. Then there is a rock, is there, a rock higher
than we ? We have heard of Jesus Christ by this strange name ;
we have heard of him as the Rock of ages ; we have heard of
him as the Rock in the wilderness ; we have heard of him as
the Stone rejected of the builders but elected of God to the chief
place. Truly, a man is driven by overwhelming floods to feel
that he needs something higher than himself, and to feel that
is to feel oneself on the way to heaven. "Higher than I," —
Psalm Ixi.] WORSHIP AND CONFIDENCE. 235
more to be relied upon, nearer God, stronger than man, equal
to all the exigencies of life ! Man naturally likes strength, and
is stirred into wonder, and often into ambition, by eminence ; his
natural condition is to be satisfied only by him who created it.
Stop at yourself, and you become an idolater; ascend to God,
and you become a true worshipper. To stop at yourself is to
hide your head in the dust while the great universe is shining
around you ; to ascend to the High Rock is to catch the light
and the inspiration of heaven. God of David, hear our prayer !
Keep us from self-trust, which is self-worship, and lead us to
the Rock !
The aspiration is succeeded by a recollection : —
"For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the
enemy" (ver. 3).
History is rightly used when it becomes the guide of hope.
The days of a man's life seem to be cut off from each other by
the nights which intervene ; but they are continuous when
viewed from the altitude of divine providence. Yesterday
enriches to-day. All the historic triumphs of the divine arm
stimulate us in the present battle. We may say of God — What
thou hast been, thou wilt be ; because thou hast inclined thine
ear unto us, therefore will we call upon thee as long as we live.
David was accustomed to turn memory into hope. We remember
how the recollection of one victory transfigured him into Israel's
greatest hero, — "The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of
the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out
of the hand of this Philistine." Few of us would be doubtful of
the future if we would make a right use of the past. We may
be very uncertain about to-morrow, but yesterday is a great
fact; it is behind us, a monument of mercy, a witness of God's
integrity, the last page of God's continual revelation ; and if we
read carefully what is written upon it, our spirits will rise with
a great hope, — we shall say each to his own soul, " Wait thou
only upon God ; for my expectation is from him. He only is
my rock and my salvation : he is my defence ; I shall not be
moved."
It is inexpressibly important to keep the mind up to a full
236 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixi.
realisation of all that God has done in one's personal history.
When a man's own history goes for nothing with him, he may
be regarded as having sunk below the level of a man ; but if he
will watch how God has developed his life, how wondrously he
has turned it, how gently he has withdrawn it into " shelter "
when the storm was coming, how graciously he has placed it
in the "strong tower" when sounds of war shook the air, he
will be moved from thankfulness to eloquence, and will say to
those who doubtfully look on — "In God is my salvation and ray
glory : the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust
in him at all times ; ye people, poiir out your heart before him :
God is a refuge for us." And is not such a course in strict
accordance with what may be termed the logic of the heart ?
Can any man who thus closely accompanies the unfolding of
divine purposes in his life resist the inference that where so
much has been done for him he should do something for God ?
The testimony would be more explicit if the reflection were more
accurate ; but we are all more or less exposed to the temptation
of practical atheism, and we fall into it when we cease to
associate God's name with the " shelter " and the " strong tower "
to which we owe the protection of our lives.
"I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy
wings " (ver. 4).
How much we desire the tabernacle when we are excluded
from its privileges ! Some of us have been in foreign lands,
where at least our form of worship was almost unknown ; the
Sabbath has returned, but its face has been unfamiliar, for it has
come as if it were but a common day ; there has been no friendly
challenging to " go into the house of the Lord ; " the influence
of the world has been strong upon us, yet we have been con-
scious of a great want. In course of time this experience takes
a definite turn ; either we cease to care for Sabbatic ordinances
and give ourselves up to the current of dissipation in which we
have been caught, or the heart sickens for its wonted fellowship
with those that keep holyday, and then we say bitterly, yet hope-
fully, " My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the
Lord ; niy heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God ; "
" My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a
Psalm Ixi.] WORSHIP AND CONFIDENCE. 237
dry and thirsty land where no water is ; " thus we come by
a painful process to know what David meant when he said,
" I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever : I will trust in the
covert of thy wings." Here is a beautiful combination, — worship
and confidence ! The relation is not only beautiful, but strictly
sequential ; for worship is confidence, and confidence is worship.
Truly to kneel before God is to express trust in him, and truly
to express trust in him is to bow down and worship at his foot-
stool. This is the complete idea of worship : not prayer only,
not hope only, not adoration only, not a blind dependence only ;
but all combined, all rounded into one great act of life.
" Under the covert of thy wings," — how tender the figure !
The bird spreads her wings over the nest where her young ones
lie, and thus gives them warmth, and affords them all the little
protection in her power. What a beautiful image of unity,
defence, completeness, safety, is so frail a thing as the nest of a
bird ! Multiply that image by infinitude ; carry it far above all
the mischances which may befal the little home of the bird, and
then see how full of comfort is the idea. " In the shadow of thy
wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be over-
past ; " " He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his
wings shalt thou trust."
This course of reflection obviates the necessity of a formal
application. We have heard of an " overwhelmed heart ; " we
have also heard of a " high rock ; " it only remains to say with
Jeremiah, " Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills,
and from the multitude of mountains," and to add with the
Psalmist, " Who is God, save the Lord ? or who is a rock, save
our God ? " We have heard of a " shelter," and a " tower," and
a " tabernacle," — words which have much meaning for the heart
when its distresses are not to be numbered, and which reach
their full explanation only in that great Saving Man who was
wounded for our transgressions.
PRAYER.
Gob be merciful unto us sinners 1 The priest has sinned, and the ruler,
and -the whole congregation, and the common people. There is none
righteous, no, not one. All we like sheep have gone astray ; we have
turned every one to his own way, There is no Pharisee standing here to
challenge the scrutiny of Heaven. We are bowed down in broken-hearted-
ness, in simple penitence and contrition of soul. In our right hand is no
virtue, in our left hand is no price; on our tongue there is no plea or self-
defence. We put our hand upon our mouth, and we put our mouth in the
dust, and we say : Unprofitable ! unclean ! God be merciful unto us sinners !
We do not stand back one for the other saying : I am holier than thou.
There is no holy man without having upon him stains and marks which tell
of the great apostacy and the personal fault. The blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth from all sin. We welcome that sweet gospel as we would welcome
an angel of light in trouble and darkness. It is the voice of God ; it is the
music of the Eternal Heart. Let it come into our spirits mightily, ruling
them with sovereign power into peace, and rest, and hope. We thank..thee
for such words as we read in the gospels of thy Son. We need them every
one ; there is not one syllable too many. We need all the tones of thy
persuasion, all the voices of thine appeal; for, verily, we knew not how far
we were from home until by thy grace we were persuaded to return home
and come to our Father's house. Behold ! then we knew that we had in
very deed taken our journey into a far country. The Lord pity us ; the
Lord himself stoop down to us, and teach us to look for new heavens and
a new earth, brighter eras, grander opportunities of service — maybe of
suffering also. Amen.
Psalm Ixii. 8.
"Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him :
God is a refuge for us."
SELF-COMMUNION.
WHAT good comes of believing in the God of the Bible ?
What are the practical effects of such faith ? Is it some-
thing which so remotely and inappreciably affects life as to be a
matter of very small concern to us ? or is it a faith which touches
life at every point ; the very sunshine of ,being, which brings its
jnorning, its summer, its autumnal mellowness and satisfaction ?
Psalm Ixii. 8.] SELF-COMMUNION. 239
The answer is suggested in the text, — "Trust in him at all times;
ye people, pour out your heart before him : God is a refuge
for us."
You believe in God ; that is to say, he has a place in your
intellectual notions ; you could not on any consideration allow his
name to be blotted out of your creed ; you are intellectually sure
that he lives. Now, be true to your own creed, and trust in
him. You believe that the river runs to the sea, and that the
sea is large enough to sustain your ship, — then act upon your
faith and launch the vessel. If you keep your vessel on the
stocks when she is finished, then all your praises of the ocean go
for nothing ; better never have built the ship than leave her
unlaunched — a monument of your scientific belief, but also a
testimony of your practical infidelity. This figure will serve us
still further. This faith in God is truly as a sea-going ship. It
is not a little craft meant for river uses, nor a toy-boat to play
upon the shore even of the sea, when the sun is shining, and the
south wind is as the sweet breath of a sleeping child ; this faith
is meant for the wide waters of the great deep, where storms
have scope for their fury, where the stars are as guide-posts, and
where the sun tells the voyager where he is and gives him the
time of heaven. You have this great ship ; she is well-built ;
you know her preciousness, — but there you are, hesitating on
the river, running down to the harbour-bar and coming back
again aghast as if you had seen a ghost : have faith ; pass the
bar; leave the headlands behind; make the stars your counsellors,
and ride upon the great sea by the guidance of the greater sun.
This is faith : not a mere nodding of the assenting head, but the
reverent risking of the loving, clinging heart. To have a God in
your belief is to sit in a ship which is chained upon the stocks ;
but to have a God in the heart, ruling the understanding, the
conscience, and the will, is to sail down the river, enter upon the
great ocean, and pass over the infinite waters into the haven of
rest.
"Trust in him at all times." This is a practical religion.
" What time I am afraid, I will trust in God. I will say of the
Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress : my God ; in him will I
240 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixii. 8.
trust." Religion is not to be occasional, but continuous. In the
daytime our faith is to shine as the sun ; in the night-time it is to
fill the darkness with stars ; at the wedding-feast it is to turn the
water into wine; in the hour of privation it is to surround the
impoverished life with angels of hope and promise ; in the day of
death it is to take the sword from the destroyer and to give the
victory to him who is apparently worsted in the fight. It is not
easy to do this. All this holy and happy issue does not come in
uninterrupted sequence; great fights of affliction have to be en-
dured, daily disciphne has to be undergone ; but, blessed be God,
the issue is not a mere conjecture, a shining possibility which
may or may not be attained ; it has actually been realised by count-
less numbers of holy men, and upon their testimony we build
the doctrine, that what the grace of God has once done it can
repeat in full and abiding miracles.
In exercising this trust there are two things to be remembered.
First : We get some of the highest benefits of life through our
most painful discipline. The very act of trust is a continual strain
upon the understanding, the affections, and the will. The trust
is not an act accomplished once for all, something that was written
down in a book long ago and may be made matter of reference
and verification; religious trust is the daily condition of the soul,
the state in which the soul lives and moves and has its being,
the source, so to say, from which it draws all its inspirations, the
feast at which it sustains its confidence, and the whole condition
which underlies and ennobles the best life. We must remember,
too, that the time of full explanation is not until by-and-by. No
doubt our lives are surrounded by what may be called dead
trusts ; a thousand blighted hopes strew our path with ghastly
figures and images : it is impossible for us to say that every trust
has been verified or every hope has been realised ; as Christian
men we have suffered the sharpness and the bitterness of innu-
merable disappointments ; hardly anything has happened as we
wished it to occur ; even when promises have been fulfilled they
have come to us in unexpected ways, and have surprised us by
relations and influences which had never entered into our reckon-
ing. Amidst all these disappointments, we simply remember
that the time of explanation will come when the whole drama ot
Psalm Ixii. 8.] SELF-COMMUNION. 241
life is closed ; then we shall see why the prayer was unanswered,
why the child whose life we desired was taken away from us,
why the one ewe lamb was removed, why the brightest flower
in the garden was blighted. A mother may have prayed, for
example, for her child's recovery, but the agony of her prayer
met with no response from Heaven ; the child died, and the.
mother's heart became an open tomb. The Christian belief is
that this may be so explained in the upper worlds and the longer
days, as to give occasion for still further praise to him who rules
the land and the sea, in whose hand is every appointment, and
whose dominion is over all as a perpetual benediction. We may
have to thank God that many of our prayers were not replied to.
It is hardly to be questioned that our disappointments may one
day come to be reckoned amongst our blessings. We need thus
to be taught the lesson of patience, to be chastened, mellowed,
and subdued, and to be taught how good a thing it is, not only
to wait upon God, but to wait for him, to wait through long days
and weary nights, to stand outside heaven's door and to abide
there in the confidence that at his own time and in his own way
the King will come, and do for us exceeding abundantly above all
that we ask or think. When the fortune of the day goes against
us, after we have prayed that it should go for us ; when the battle
which was to have ended in our independence has terminated
in our beggary, what think we of our trust in God ? Has it not
been misplaced ? Has not the fact given the lie to the faith ?
Certainly it looks so. Appearances are very frequently against
the Christian argument and the Christian confidence. Let us
remember, however, that " there is a way which seemeth right
unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." The
young man said to his father : Give me the portion of goods that
falleth to me : I will undertake life on my own account ; I can do
better for myself than you are doing for me. Such talk, loud and
boastful, we have heard many a day ; but has there been a single
instance in which the vanity has not been punished, and the
pride dragged through many a humiliation ? It is only by bitter
experience that we can be taught our weakness, our ignorance,
and the whole meaning of our depravity. It is more than folly
on our part to contend that God should have prevented us doing,
this or that. The fact is, we are men, and being men we have
VOL. XII. 16
242 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixii. 8.
the power of volition, and we are called to responsibility, not
acting as mere machines, but as creatures who can think, reason,
compare, deduce, and determine processes for ourselves. It is
enough that God should state the whole case and give us the
advantage of our own experience and the experience of the whole
world, and then should leave us to decide for ourselves what we
ought to do. By manifold suffering we come round to the right
state of mind. " Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that
obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and
hath no light ? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay
upon his God."
The exhortation takes another turn — " Pour out your hearts
before him." Though he knows all, yet he must be told all.
Make God your confidant. " Arise, cry out in the night ; in the
beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before
the face of the Lord." Hannah said, " I have poured out my soul
before the Lord." The figure represents the act of giving up the
whole of the contents of the heart to God's keeping. It is not a
word now and then that has to be spoken, or a hint that has to
be given, or a signal that has to be held out ; the action is a
complete emptying of the heart, the outpouring of every secret
thought, purpose, motive, desire, and affection, that thus the man
may stand in a right attitude and relation towards his God. Our
communion with Heaven should be unreserved. What we keep
back we keep back to our own destruction. It is not enough to
plead the omniscience of God as an excuse for not telling him all,
because that same reason would cover everything that we do tell
him, and render that also unnecessary. Self-communion may be
in a very high sense divine communion. There are some things
which we ought to say aloud to ourselves, for in the very tone
there may be the comfort and the stimulus of worship. We
must keep back nothing from ourselves. We may suppose that
tht§ is impossible, but experience has proved it to be not only
possible but real, to be indeed one of the saddest facts in all life.
We throw a curtain over our own motives, we set the whole
purpose of life in a false light, we confuse ourselves by the creation
of bewildering noises ; in a word, we do not deal faithfully and
resolutely with ourselves. This being the case, how can we
Psalm Ixii. 8.] SELF-COMMUNION. 243
commune with God ? The very act of communion would be a
hypocrisy and a lie ; it would seem to mean things which it does
not really imply. The very first condition to true, profound, and
edifying worship is that we should cleanse our hearts of every
secret, and pour out the whole contents of our being in penitence
and thanksgiving before God : then the vision of heaven will shine
upon us, then the comforting angels will be sent with gospels
from the throne of grace, then new heavens shall beam above
us, and a new earth shall spread out all its flowers and fruits for
our delight and our sustenance. O heart ! so deceitful, so com-
plicated, often so inexplicable, thou must learn this lesson of self-
confession, self-revelation, yea, even self-sacrifice, so that the very
uttermost farthing of confession may be made, and the very last
tone of contrition may be uttered I
Is there any folly equal to the folly of a man deceiving him-
self, telling lies to his own soul, and feeding his own spirit with
vanity and wind ? This is the point at which we must begin ;
to begin anj'where else is to trifle with the occasion, and
actually to tempt God, and practically to blaspheme against his
Spirit. Our communion should not only be unreserved, it
should be long-continued : " Pray without ceasing," Prayer that
is only occasional is not prayer at all, nor can it be, by the very
necessity of the case. A man who tries to breathe but once a
week cannot live ; he attempts to perform an impossibility, and the
attempt ends in failure. We live by breathing. As our breathing
is continual so ought our aspiration to be unceasing. This is a
mystery known only to those who have entered into the secrets
of practical and experimental piety. The mistake is often made
that prayer must be formal, of the nature of prepared ^td
calculated homage, partaking indeed of the quality of a state
occasion, — that is to say, something that must be done according
to time and place, and being once done stands in completeness.
The only true analogy about the soul's life in reference to
communion with God is to be found in the continual breathing
of the bodily life. We breathe without knowing it. When we
are in health we are not aware that we have a physical nature at
all ; everything works harmoniously and smoothly and without
giving any reminder to the man that he is inhabiting a decaying
244 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixii. 8.
or uncertain dwelling-place. It is even so with the soul. There
is a sense in which we may enjoy an unconscious piety; that is,
a piety that has lived itself out of the region of statute and
machinery, scaffolding and external upholding, and that poses
itself as on strong wings at the very gate of the morning. This
is not carelessness : it may be the very last expression of long-
continued spiritual culture.
There should be some diiference of a most obvious and
practical kind between those who believe in God and those who
do not. Trust in God should express itself in calmness and
beneficence of life, V^hat hope ought he to have whose con-
fidence is in the living God! Hope seizes the whole future, and
treats it as an immediate present, for all purposes of edification
and stimulus. Jesus Christ for the joy that was set before him
endured the Cross. Whilst we are upon earth we may yet in all
high spiritual effects be in heaven, walking before the throne,
drinking at the living fountains of water, and enjoying the
ineffable calm of the celestial state. But all this may be of the
nature of rhapsody or high contemplation. All this, however, is
to be sustained and exemplified by actual practical generosity
as between man and man. The Christian should live to give.
Christianity is expenditure. We have nothing that we have not
received, and because we have all things in Christ we are to give
and labour with both hands earnestly, leaving God to provide for
the future as the future may reveal itself To a precious hope,
and a lavish generosity, must be added the spirit of audacious
enterprise in all matters pertaining, to the kingdom of God.
Those who trust in the Living One cannot rest until other men
have been brought to him in simple faith and love. This indeed
is the pecuHarity of the Christian religion above all others, —
namely, that it constrains its believers to go forth and preach the
Gospel to every creature under heaven. What an irony it is to
see men who professedly trust in the living God going up and
down the earth gloomily and sadly, beclouded with forebodings,
and affrighted by spectres and superstitions ! Something, of
course, may be traced to physical temperament, and to hereditary
affliction ; at the same time the very fact of professing religion
ought to bring with it vivacity, hopefulness, courage, and lead a
Psalm Ixii. 8.] SELF-COMMUNION. 245
man to speak about the Father with all the calmness of personal
certitude. What, then, are we to say to those who, looking on
such gloomy minds, taunt us with the effect of the Christian
religion ? Surely they have some justification for theii jibe and
sarcasm. They say, Look at such men : they profess the religion
of Christ, they attend the sanctuary regularly, they are numbered
amongst the nominal saints ; and yet how fearful they are, how
easily dispirited, how they vex themselves concerning the market,
the harvest, or the issue of adventure ; better not be a Christian
if this is Christianity. The taunt is surely not without reason ;
let that be admitted once for all ; but the Christian may instantly
reply. It is true that such men are far from exhibiting the cheer-
fulness of Christianity, but what would they have been without
the Christian religion ? If they are so gloomy with it, what would
have been their despondency without it ? For such men to hold
up their heads at all, to see even one inch of blue in all the dark
firmament, is a miracle which only God could accomplish. Let
us then fix our minds upon this aspect, and not yield the argu-
ment when it is contended that Christianity always brings with
it peace, joy, and glad expectation. Life should be seen to be
far-extending it its relations, and requiring long time for its full
development and explanation. It is in the long reach that the
great explanation lies. The very fact that our satisfactions are
not immediate and complete may arise from the dignity and
duration of our being. The insect may be satisfied here and
now, little capacities may be filled without trouble ; but in
proportion to the largeness, the greatness, the dignity, the
spiritual grandeur of any being, must be the time required for
complete and enduring development. Blessed be God, then, for
this cheering word. He wishes to elicit our trust. If we may
so say it, we can give God no greater pleasure than to cast all
our care upon him, to entrust to him every concern and every
detail of life with absolute fearlessness and perfect consecration.
The very hairs of our head are all numbered. Our downsitting
is of consequence to God, and our uprising is matter of note in
heaven ; yea, our going out and o\ir coming in would seem to
touch the solicitude of our Father.
All this will be romantic to the man who has had no spiritual
246 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixii. 8.
experience; but we must not consult the blind upon colours
or the deaf upon harmonies, or the dead upon the duties, the
enjoyments, and the sacrifices of life. " Blessed are the pure in
heart : for they shall see God." The natural man does not
understand spiritual things; they can only be spiritually dis-
cerned. Let us therefore never be afraid of confessing our faith
because there are some men who seem to have no faith capacity.
There is a native language which belongs to Christians alone,
arid they must never be deterred from speaking in their native
tongue because they are in a land of strangers and foreigners.
My soul, boast thou in the living God : boldly utter his name,
lift up his banner, and say. He will take care of me; by his
strength I will run through a troop and leap over a wall,
and because his infinite comforts are round about me I shall
be delighted in darkness, satisfied in famine, and filled with
strength which no enemy can overthrow. We ought to have
more of this loud thanksgiving in the Church. We are solid
enough in doctrine ; we are perfectly sure of our main theological
positions : but all this is not enough ; prayer should rise into
praise, praise should become the very rapture of the soul, and
in all the high excitement which is legitimate to the spiritual life
we should abolish death, and forget all the meanness of time,
and attach ourselves to all the solemnity and grandeur of eternity.
Great thoughts enlarge the mind. Great conceptions should
enlarge and cheer the heart. The Christian thinker deals with
nothing that is not large, either in itself or its relations. How
large-minded, then, should they be who are one with God in
Christ, who are connected with all the eternal purpose of Heaven,
and who are daily looking for the outshining of the infinite glory !
We must lift up our heads and behold who created the heavens
and all their host ; and claiming these as the creation of our Father
we must excite ourselves into holy rapture by the confident
assurance that all the worlds are ours, and if even their treasures
could be exhausted God could create more worlds and larger than
have ever yet shone in all the infinity of space.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, we thank thee that thou hast shown us unto ourselves. No
man knoweth what is in him ; only thy Spirit can reveal the soul to itself.
When the Spirit of Truth is come it will convince the world of sin, of
righteousness, and of judgment to come ; it will read our inmost thoughts
to us, and read all surrounding history in its right tone. We know nothing
as it ought to be known, we cannot tell what we are thinking about, we
do not hear our own voices ; help us then to receive thy revelation of
human nature, and to stand aghast at all the wondrous things which are
shown to us concerning ourselves. Save us from self-delusion ; destroy the
deceit which tells any man that he is good ; show us how impossible it
is for us to show our goodness in the noontide of God's purity. Thus
abase us; take us out of ourselves, that, seeing the hideous sight, we may
fall down and cry bitterly for the forgiveness of God in Christ Jesus the
Saviour. We deceive ourselves, we say we are good, we think we are
good, we count our virtues and our moralities, and add them up into
reputation and character : save us from this lie, show us that the heart is
deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, that it has its gala day,
its time of bannering and trumpeting, wherein it exceedingly lauds its
own respectability and honour. We want to see the inmost heart, the
real motive, and we want to see it as God sees it ; then shall we cry out
at midnight. What must I do to be saved ? Thus do thou prepare us to
receive thy gospel, O Son of God ; may we listen to it as contrite men ;
may we pay attention to thy gospel as men would attend to those who
are come to declare liberty to the captive. Destroy all inattentiveness,
worldliness, reluctance on our part, and fill us with that solemn eagerness
which asks that it may receive, seeks that it may find, knocks that the
door may be opened unto it. We will sing of thy mercy, thou Giver of
all good ; thou hast not withheld thine hand from us ; yea with both hands
hast thou scattered upon our life-path the bounty of thy love. No good
thing will the Lord withhold from them that walk uprightly : help us by thy
Spirit to walk in uprightness before God, that we may claim things present
and things to come, things on earth and things in heaven. Guide us every
day. We need thy presence every moment : the days are mysteries, they
are questions that require to be answered, they are problems that must
be solved ; but we have no light or truth or wisdom but in God, through
Jesus Christ our Lord, as he is revealed to us by God the Holy Ghost.
Come to us then, and undertake our whole training ; leave nothing to
ourselves, or we will play the fool before God : watch us at every point,
and during every moment ; before our thought has shaped itself do thou
purify it, O Holy Spirit. Thou wilt not wait until our thoughts become
24S THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixix.
words, and our words become actions ; we want thee at the very first,
before we know what we are thinking about, not to purify the thought, but
to purify the thinker; make the tree good, and then the fruit shall be good.
Thou hast led us by ways that we knew not ; we said. This is the end,
and, lo, it became but the beginning ! w^e said, The next billow will over-
whelm us, and lo, it died a mile away ! we said, We cannot endure this
great agony, and behold thou didst strengthen us so that we were wonders
unto ourselves, and we came out of all the pain and havoc, saying. This
is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes. Thou dost train us
wondrously; when we become ambitious, thou dost cut the capital from
the pillar and leave it bare, unfinished, and naked, a stalk ashamed of itself;
when we think we can do without God, behold thou sendest the wolves
upon us that they may teach us how to pray ; when we say we shall die
in our nest, thou dost tear the little straws to pieces and scatter them upon
the winds. All this, if we accept it in thy spirit, blessed Saviour, shall be
for our good, for our refinement and chastening, and we shall come out
of it richer, because holier, meek and quiet because strong and triumphant
in faith. Regard all for whom we ought to pray, — the old and the young,
the weary ones who want to glide away and be tormented no more by
earth's activities and mockeries; and the young and the ardent, the
enthusiastic and the passionate, who think they are going to storm all
fortresses and take them, and lo ! at the end they will say with the dejected
prophet, I am no better than my fathers. Father in heaven, be our Father;
Saviour of the Cross, cleanse us in thy blood ; Holy Spirit, the mystery
of all being, forsake us not, nor leave us, for we are the work of the hands
of God. Amen.
Psalm Ixix.
PROVOCATION AND IMPRECATION.
NOBODY knows who wrote this poem. All the little
headings and ascriptions are of purely human origin, and
therefore no reliance is to be put upon them except they be
corroborated by historical proofs. Otherwise we read at the
head of this psalm, " A Psalm of David ; " but who wrote that
heading is probably as little known as who wrote the psalm
itself. It does not apply to David, because there are some things
here that never occurred in his lifetime ; it does not apply to
Christ wholly, because there are some things here which he
never could have said, notably, " O God, thou knowest my foolish-
ness ; and my sins are not hid from thee." Who, then, wrote
the psalm ? I think we can tell. It has a large authorship.
Everybody who has known anything of the deeper experiences
of human life wrote this psalm. We wrote it, though it be
thousands of years old, if we have passed through experiences
Psalm Ixix.] PROVOCATION AND IMPRECATION. 249
such as it describes : and we have done so in some degree.
Every soul that has seen life in anything like its proper scope
and its true reality has been exactly where this man describes
himself to have been. All his prayers, sufferings, aspirations,
imprecations, are ours.
How often we think of water and billow and wave and sea
when we are in trouble ! Not, the wolves have pursued me ;
not, the lions have opened their mouths and roared upon me ;
though these figures are not wanting when we seek to describe
some aspects of human experience : but, " the waters are come
in unto my soul. ... I am come into deep waters, where the
floods overflow me." We never know what water is going to do.
We know what the wolf is about : there is no pity in the wolf's
eye ; but " water " — is that water which is rolling in the leaf
of the flower ? is that water which is made into pearly dew ?
Yes, that is water. Is that water which is shaped into a rainbow,
acted upon by the transfiguring sun ? Yes, that is water. Is
that water which is like a mirror in the valley, redoubling the
sky and redoubling the hills, and taking the roughness out of
the shaggy forest, and making it a thing of still rarer beauty ?
Yes, that is water. Can it ever be angry ? What can be so
angry as water ? It sweeps away whole cities and towns as it
roars and plunges in terrific floods down the narrow valleys.
Is that the dew ? Yes, in another form, that is the dew.
Trouble may begin like dew, and then may trickle in upon us,
and then may greatly increase its volume, it may become a
river, a torrent, a cataract, and may go on even to become a great
sea. Beware of beginnings. That which is very simple at first
may become very awful at last. We talk of a " sea of trouble " :
the poet was right when he formed and expressed that daring
and tumultuous image.
" I sink." What feeling is equal to that ? The man cannot
fight, for he has no standing-ground ; he cannot run away, for the
earth will not afford him a place to run upon : he goes down
more and more ; presently he will be engulfed. The man can do
nothing. Here i& an image of helplessness, of direst despair.
So long as a man can run or walk or defend himself in any
250 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixix.
degree, his dejection is saved from despair; but the process of
sinking — that is a doctor's word. The doctor says, " The patient
is sinking." We know the meaning of that expression ; there
is no longer any sphere of combat or collision or defence ; the
motion is downward.
In all this trouble we come upon the puzzle of all ages : —
"They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs
of mine head : they that would destroy me, being mine enemies
wrongfully, are mighty," If that were a whole view we might
well close the book of revelation and say we must look other-
where for interpretation and for comfort. Yet when men are
sinking they cannot be philosophers ; expressions are driven out
of them which will not bear to be analysed and balanced anc
estimated by cold and sober reason. It is well to have momen-
tary expressions ; it is instructive sometimes to have our sentences
cut off in the middle. When our eloquence is guillotined we are
often surprised at our own insanity. Imagination gives up life's
battle too soon : piercing, burning agony is not a calm, tranquil
reasoner, saying, I will follow out this analysis, and see to what
rich conclusion it leads. When the soul is aflame, as it were
with the fire of hell, it will commit itself to bold and broad and
indefensible statement. In that condition we over-estimate the
might of the enemy ; we think the clouds are armies, we suppose
all the firm trees on the hillside to be moving down upon us in
great hosts ; whereas, when we recover ourselves, and stand at
the centre of things, and look round about us with the eyes of
true piety, we see that the flowers were not against us, that the
forests were no foes of ours, and that we multiplied the strength
of the enemy because our imagination was inspired by fear. In
ohr sober moments, when we can pray with our whole heart,
and hold God in intercourse with our whole voice, we know
perfectly well that there are no enemies any man can have that
are worthy of a moment's attention. No man can harm you ; the
devil cannot stain your character : it is for the man himself to say
what shall be the issue of trial, discipline, collision, combat. God
has given each man the power, not the right, of suicide.
A wondrous conflict is proceeding in the mind of this poet.
Psalm Ixix.] PROVOCATION AND IMPRECATION. 251
He says, " Let not them that wait on thee, O Lord God of hosts,
be ashamed for my sake : let not those that seek thee be con-
founded for my sake, O God of Israel." This is what we call in
common society esprit de corps, — the spirit of the body, the spirit
of the club, the spirit of the brotherhood or the church. This
poet is afraid that if he misbehaves himself people will exalt
themselves against God, and say with mocking laughter, These
are thy saints I Even whilst he is sinking he would wish to do
it with some grace. Extinction itself may be crowned with
a species of honour. Death need not be humiliation. There
are men who have so died as to have lived a thousand lives in
their last combat. Have we lost esprit de corps? Do you not
remember that we are involved in the way in which you bear
your troubles ? If you do not play the man now the enemy will
laugh at the whole Church ; he will gladly take you up as a
specimen of God's sustaining grace, and say. This is the man who
prayed : how chopfallen now ! see how that once proud chin
hangs on the collapsing breast : this is prayer I If I do not bear
myself heroically in the storm, the enemy will have a right to
laugh at this pulpit, and to put his foot of contempt upon this
whole ministry. If I play the atheist in the darkness, then may
men justly mock what I endeavour to say in the light. The
mockery will be directed against God, not against men. Moses
felt this ; he said. If they go back, they will say thou thyself wert
not able to take us forward ; and if saints do not play the hero in
the time of real combat and desperate difficulty, when everything
is going down, when business is dull, when enemies are strong,
when health is quaking, people will blame not thern only but
God, and say, This is the doing of the Lord ; why, what advan-
tage is it that we pray to him ? or what profit have we in waiting
upon God ? the saint and the dog die in the same agony. Thus
we recover ourselves, under the blessing of God, by thinking of
others. Fathers should remember this. What will your sons
say if they see you playing the coward ? Why, it will be more
than human on their part to play anything else themselves.
The whole family will go up or go down in your temper : you
give the keynote, you conduct the song; it is for you to say
whether the music shall rise into rapture, and crown itself with
triumph, or whether it shall dwindle and die and be forgotten.
252 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixix.
gladly forgotten, for it was the groan of a defeated soul. All
men who lead society to any considerable extent ought to
remember the action of this. For they cannot fall or fail alone.
They themselves will be blamed, and their principles will be
mocked, and their memory will be a trust which no man will
undertake, for who would lock up a shame in his strong-box and
sa}^, Lo, I am the trustee of this cowardice?
The poet sa3's, "The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up;
and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon
me." He knew what he had been doing; he had taken his own
temperature every day, he watched the thermometer of his soul ;
he had become so zealous about God that the reproaches of those
who reproached God fell upon him. We might read the text
with proper syntax reversel}^ and say, " And the reproaches of
them that are fiillen upon me are also fallen upon thee, O God."
It is well to remember that God and his people go together.
You cannot reproach a good man without reproaching God ; you
cannot reproach Providence without reproaching the whole
Church. There are circumstances under which God will not be
separated from his people. They that receive you receive me,
and they that receive me, said Christ, receive him that sent me.
Not onl}' is the Church to be one, the Church is to be one in
God ; God and the Church are to be one, and indivisible.
A very fine feature in this poet's character comes out in the
tenth and eleventh verses. He made some endeavour to con-
ciliate men ; he thought he would handle society with tact : instead
of being a saint, he would be a manager ; instead of being a
suppliant always, he would undertake the work of manipulation.
Let us see what it all came to. When a man leaves his prayer
that he may begin to manage society — a trick I counsel you
never to learn — it comes to this: "When I wept, and chastened
my soul with fasting, that was to my reproach ; " they mocked
me, they heard my prayers and turned them back upon me;
when I cried my very eyes out because of the bitterness of my
soul they mimicked my weeping, they became my echoes; "I
made sackcloth also my garment ; and I became a proverb to
them ;" they made a maxim of me, a joke, a sneer ; they quoted
Psalm Ixix.] PROVOCATION AND IMPRECATION. 253
me in their songs, and those that were most ribald were most
free in their iniquitous and humiliating criticisms upon me.
Never attempt to coax society ; have nothing to do with mean
compromises. If there is any mystery in your life, face it, wait
its solution, accept it as a chastisement or an opportunity for self-
refinement; but never endeavour to conciliate society by making
light of any of the mysteries of God. And never show your
deepest agonies to those who cannot understand them. You have
no right to cry in public ; you are forbidden to show your sores
to those who will only mock God because of the harrowing sight ;
seek the prophet, cultivate fellowship with kindred spirits who
know the tragedy and pain of life, and who have large experience,
and who can, out of the consolations with which they themselves
have been comforted, encourage and sustain your soul. As for
the enemy, and the drunkards who make songs out of human
misery, you do not belong to that masonry ; renounce it, and
never give the enemy an opportunity to mock your sorrow.
Still the poet says he will be firm ; come what may he will be
found at the right place : — " But as for me, my prayer is unto thee,
O Lord, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy
mercy hear me, in the truth of thy salvation." Here is what
may be termed proved constancy. Here is something that can-
not be trifled with, or cannot be moved about by sleight of hand ;
here is a faith that lies beyond the line of surprise. It cannot be
amazed into unbelief. There is a growing faith, struggling and
feeble more or less, that sometimes is almost half-infidel ; it
requires time, richer experience, large opportunity for develop-
ment, and then at the last it becomes stalwart, herculean, massive,
immovable. We want faith that has been tested ; we want men
who have come up through all the cloud of doubt and by the
grace of God have been enabled to lift up their heads into the
cloudless sunshine. There is a way, so we have heard, of
evading all doubt, and sorrow of soul, and difficulty, and getting
into heaven by some unnamed road. I cannot vouch for the
accuracy of that statement. There are those who have never
had doubt or fear or difficulty; they have always sung the same
song, and the same words, in the same key, and never have been
devoid of real spiritual cheerfulness ; they have come into the
254 T^^ PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixix.
world, and have passed through it, and have gone up into heaven
singing all the time. I will not undertake to endorse that view
of the case. They have made no mark in history, they have left
behind them nothing that fear-stricken spirits can take hold of,
saying. This is human consolation, sent for my nourishment
and edification. The faith that would rule the world now is a
faith that has come up through all the infidelities, and stands
immeasurably above them all. We do not want some secretly
gained faith that has never tested the weather ; we want a faith
that has encountered the enemy all the way and smitten him,
and has come up to the top by the grace and goodness of God,
and therefore will pray wherever the floods are, and will find a
kneeling-place even in the mire. Be afraid of those persons who
have never gone out into difficult circumstances, who have never
encountered the enemy, who have never seen the wilderness of
temptation, and who have never read anything calculated to shape
their faith : have confidence in the men who have seen it all, who
have spent forty days and forty nights with the devil, who have
seen infidelity, unbelief, atheism, in all their varieties, postures,
and possibilities, and have left them below. These are the men
whose record will be living annotations upon the living gospel.
Even now the poet begins to hope. He says, — " Deliver me
out of the mire, and let me not sink : let me be delivered from
them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the
waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up,
and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me " : say. Thus far
shalt thou come, no farther; define the limit of trial, remember
my frame, reflect that I am but dust, and have pity upon me,
O God of my salvation. Whilst there is life there is hope ; man's
extremity is God's opportunity. The man is in the mire, and he
is sinking, yet he says. Lord, so long as my mouth is above the
mire there is time for thee to come and save; a moment more
and all will be over, but it is into a moment thou canst condense
thine own eternity. "Let not the pit shut her mouth upon me,"
In Eastern lands the pits were covered with stones ; the stone
was put there to protect the water from defilement, and to prevent
travellers from plunging into unseen depths ; so this man says, I
am in the well, but do not let the stone be put upon the top of it,
Psalm Ixix.] PROVOCATION AND IMPRECATION. 255
let not the pit shut its mouth upon me. The placing of the stone
on the well was called shutting its mouth. So even at that last
point, when the men were lifting the stone and going to put it
upon the top of the well, even then, said the poet, God can come
to me, and even yet can mightily deliver me.
Then comes a change of spiritual key in the twenty-second
verse. There was provocation enough ; the man had a good
cause from a merely human standpoint ; when they gave him
gall for his meat, and when in his thirst they gave him vinegar
to drink, he might well be excused, humanly speaking, from
desiring that what they had done to him might be done to
themselves. We do not know what is in our hearts until we
are tried ; you do not know that your best friend is a Christian
until you have seen him under insult ; you know nothing about
any man until you have seen him opposed. Many a man there
is with a nice reputation and a sleek name, and a person who
is spoken of as being extremely amiable, whom you have never
seen under difficulty. Let some one oppose him, disappoint him,
insult him, then you will know what he is. There are saints to-
day who if their self-love were wounded would prove themselves
to be the veriest atheists upon earth. Yet they have prayed an
hour in the morning, and are ready to pray another hour in the
evening. What covers them is a film of piety; that film is
spread over a whole body of devilry. You know what you are
when you find yourselves in an unlawful passion. This man
prays that God will deal very heavily and hardly with enemies.
The man probably did not know what he was talking about.
We do not understand the force of our own words: There are
circumstances under v/hich a man is not to be held responsible
for his own statements, though the man be perfectly sane,
because he does not know the atmosphere in which he is
speaking, the circumstances under which he is delivering himself;
he does not know the balance and force of the words he is using.
In order to know what he is saying he must consult the persons
who hear him. We speak of the phonograph, and think it a
very wonderful instrument; so it is; there is one, peculiarity
about it which men of science have pointed out, namely, that the
only men who do not recognise the voice are the men to whom
256 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixix.
the voice belongs. When the phonograph speaks, all a man's
friends say, "That is your voice, how distinct, how wonderful,
how vivid ! do you not hear it ? " And the man says, " That is
not my voice." The only man who does not recognise the tone
of the phonograph is the man whose voice it is repeating. So
infidels do not recognise their own arguments. When they see
men devastated by them, when they see young men rise from
their knees, and say then they will pray no longer, the infidel
wants to avoid all responsibility, and says, *' I never said that,
I never meant that." Why science is against him, the phono-
graph is against him ; he thinks he never said it, but he said
every word of it, only he did not understand what he was
saying ; the words meant one thing to him, and another to the
person who heard them. But we shall be judged by our deeds,
our effects, and not always by our purposes. Let him that
thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Say to certain
persons that their words have been grievous, sharp, unkind,
and they will deny that they ever uttered the words, just as the
man denied that the voice emitted by the phonograph was his ;
but fate will avenge the injury, science will come and be a
witness against the foolish person, and every man will have to
give account of himself to God for the things done in the body,
whether they be good, or whether they be evil. Do not bind
a man, therefore, to his imprecations. He does not wholly mean
that these things should be deluged or destroyed, or pursued by
evil spirits, or stung by hornets ; he did not mean all that : only
at the time these great expressions seemed best to set forth the
tumult of his agitation. Men who are in Christ never utter im-
precatory prayers, they never write imprecatory psalms ; when
they dip their pen for the purpose of writing such poetry, a
voice arrests them, saying, " Dearly beloved, avenge not your-
selves ; for it is written, Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith
the Lord." Do not undertake to punish your enemies. Have
nothing to do with dealing out penalties to men who have
wronged you. God's mills grind slowly, but they grind exceeding
small, and there is no coward or sneak or base man or sharp-
eyed, clever-fingered thief who has done you wrong that shall
not, if he do not repent, be ground to powder.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, thou who art merciful and gracious, full of compassion and
long-suffering and tenderness, thou art kind to the unthankful and to the evil !
We come to thee with our offering of praise, inasmuch as thou hast crowned
our life with loving-kindness and tender mercy and made it beautiful with
continual love. We praise thee; we magnify thee ; we offer thee the whole
strength of our heart. We come to thee as those who have been mocked by
the promises of the world, and who long to find satisfaction in thine infinite
and unspeakable peace. We have been disappointed. The staff has been
broken in our hand and pierced us. We have hewn unto ourselves cisterns ;
they are broken cisterns, which can hold no water. Foiled, smitten, wounded,
humiliated and disgraced, we come into thy presence, knowing that in God
as revealed in the person and doctrine of Jesus Christ, and made known
unto us by the ministry of the Holy Ghost, we can find rest which our souls
could not find elsewhere. All our springs are in thee. Thou givest us what
we need. They who are in thy presence, who live in thy light, and thy
love, hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither are subjected to
weariness or decay. We would live in God. We would have our being in the
Eternal. We would know nothing among men but Jesus and him crucified;
and by the mystery of pain and the mystery of love, symbolised by Christ's
Cross, we would endure the trials of the world, and discharge the whole
service of life. Meet us as sinners, and pardon us ! The blood of Jesus
Christ thy Son cleanseth from all sin. May we know its cleansing, healing
power ! We have done the things we ought not to have done ; we have
withheld the testimony which it became us to deliver; we have often been
timid and unfaithful ; we have hesitated when we ought to have gone
forward ; our word has been untrue ; our spirit has been worldly ; our very
prayers have been selfish. All this we say when we truly know ourselves,
and we are revealed to ourselves by the in-dwelling, all-disclosing Spirit.
God be merciful to us sinners, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Amen.
Psalm l^xii.
THE KINGSHIP OP JESUS.
THERE has not been wanting a disposition to empty the
so-called Messianic psalms, of their references to Jesus
Christ. In a sense, it is not only right but spiritually profitable
to get at the immediate and literal meaning of prophecy and
VOL. XII. 17
258 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxii.
psalm, and every other Scripture ; at the same time, why should
there be any other disposition to limit the signification of the
sacred writers to local and transient events, when many of them
are evidently charged with greater meaning than can be justly
limited to any one occasion ? As a rule of criticism we should
determine in the first instance to find out the literal and gram-
matical meaning of every passage, and where possible to fix the
local operation of its primary significance; but this being done
it is open to the religious imagination to fill in all the larger
meanings of which the sacred words are susceptible, and where
the history justifies the application of larger meanings the critic
should take his stand upon historical conditions and vindicate
himself by realisations which may not have entered into the
dream of the original writer. It is quite within the compass of
easy proof that many of the writers of holy Scripture did not
themselves know the full extent of their own meaning. As in
nature, so in revelation ; even a stone may be put to various
uses ; all the elements of the earth may be gathered up and
shaped into unexpected significations and symbolisms : and so a
man may have written words which he himself limited as to
time and space, and yet the meaning of inspiration may reach
infinitely further than the boundaries which he imposed upon
himself in setting down what he supposed to be his own words.
For my part, I cannot read this psalm without feeling that as
applied and limited to Solomon it is an intolerable exaggeration.
There is no reason why Solomon should not take his place in
the psalm as being in some way prefigured by its symbolism
and apocalypse, but being like ourselves only a man, there are
expressions in the psalm which could not be literally applied to
any human creature. If we are severely literal in one direction,
we must be equally severe in the other ; and according to this
equal law we shall save ourselves from applying to King Solomon
words which in their natural meaning would involve a species of
idolatry and even blasphemy. In no profound sense should
prayer be made to any man continually, nor daily should he be
praised ; nor should his name endure for ever in any other sense
than what is generally understood by the term reputation or
fame. It is evident, furthermore, that all nations could not call
Solomon blessed, except in his relations to One greater than
Psalm Ixxii.] THE KINGSHIP OF JESUS. 259
himself and his father. Allowing, therefore, that Solomon has
his place in the references of this psalm, we still adhere to the
holy conviction that the psalm is only fulfilled in all its emblems,
metaphors, and prognostications, by the King of kings and Lord
of lords. We are entitled to go back and interpret prophecy by
history, and we know of no psalm which more readily yields itself
to historical interpretation than this noble ode.
The king often represented God to the Hebrew mind. The
king was the medium through which the Hebrew poet and
worshipper saw as much as possible of the divine nature and
government; he was, indeed, a kind of incarnation of the divine
righteousness and clemency : hence the veneration with which
the very name of the king was regarded, and hence the confi-
dence that it was impossible for him to be wicked, to pervert
judgment, or to do wrong. The king was thus interprejted, not
in his limited personality, but in the symbolism of his office, and
so interpreted he became as god to the nations over which he
reigned. The king referred to in this psalm is one who has
peculiar regard for the poor and the children of the needy, and
by virtue of that regard he sets himself in continual hostility to
the oppressor and to those who live by unrighteousness. Surely
this prophecy was fulfilled in the Soil of God, whose words
of recognition in reference to the poor were charged with the
sublimest tenderyess, and whose anger to those who were hypo-
critical and oppressive and selfish burned like an oven. The
gentleness of Christ is beautifully represented by the words,
" He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass : as showers
that water the earth," — there shall be nothing of tempest in his
way of coming, nothing of violence ; no storm shall follow in his
track, as he moves forward to save and comfort the sons of men :
he shall, so to say, be best represented by those processes of
nature which are most gracious ; he shall be part of the very
grain that blesses the earth ; he shall mingle with the light
which brings the morning; he shall be within the warmth that
comforts and fertilises the earth with gracious heat : no special
chariot of thunder shall be created in which he may go forth ;
rather will he join the simplest and most familiar processes of
nature, and come as one who attracts no attention except by the
26o ^ THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxii.
consciousness of fuller grace which he works in every heart that
receives him.
The more active aspects of his ministry are shown in such
words as — ** In his days shall the righteous flourish ; and
abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth. He shall
have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the
ends of the earth." These words are pregnant even with military
meaning, for they signify that, stand in the way who may, or
what may, all shall go down before the progress of the kingdom
of Christ. There is no threatening of hostility, there is no de-
fiance of evil powers; nothing of the nature of challenge enters
into these solemn and gracious words ; yet there they stand in
all the solidity of a decree, in all the brightness of a prophetic
hope — "he shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from
the river unto the ends of the earth "-^how much is involved in
this promise, what a lifting up of things that are cast down,
what a smoothing of rough places, what an overturning of evil
fortresses, what an implication of Omnipotence ! All these things
can only find their fulfilment, and the perfectness of their glory,
in the rule of him who was made perfect through suffering. We
are told, indeed, in more aggressive language, that " his enemies
shall lick the dust " : this need not imply any violence being
inflicted upon the enemies, although that also comes within the
scope of the divine government and purpose ; but it may mean
that such shall be the progress of right, such the vindication of
justice, such the comfort which the poor shall realise and enjoy
and through which they shall be strengthened, that the enemies
of Christ shall be bowed down with shame and confusion, and
shall seek a dwelling-place within the very shadow of his feet.
Not only are the poor to be blessed, and all the humble to be
sustained and nourished by the comforting grace of Christ, but
all the great powers of the earth, as typified by kings and rulers,
shall offer their crowns to the Son of God, — " The kings of
Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents : the kings of
Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. Yea, all kings shall fall down
before him : all nations shall serve him." Thus the Son of God
does not rule along one line only, as if he were limited in grace
Psalm Ixxii.] THE KINGSHIP OF JESUS. 261
or confined in power ; he rules with both hands, he covers the
whole space, he throbs in every pulse of time ; nothing is kept
back from him, for his right extends over all things, seeing that
he made all things, and without him was not anything made that
was made. How these kingdoms shall be brought into submis-
sion we are not told, but even here there are two processes by
which kings and kingdoms, thrones and empires, may fall to the
lot of the Son of man, as a part of his decreed and eternal posses-
sion. The mighty powers of the earth may be smitten down and
crushed by irresistible force. Almightiness may breathe upon
them, and cause them to lose all their pride, and to give up all
that is defiant and hostile ; or a great spiritual operation may
take place within the heart of the mighty and the noble, and
they may be lured from all that is ambitious, worldly, and selfish,
and be brought in humble homage to the Son of man, uncrowning
themselves before his majesty, and offering him the tribute of
their worship and love. This is the supreme method by which
Christ makes men known, by which he enlarges and consolidates
his kingdom. He will not have kings or subjects merely chained
to his throne as if they were slaves; he will have them bound
to his person and to his purposes, by the consent of their love,
by the homage of their hearts, by the yielding of their illumi-
nated and sanctified judgment. He acquires his supreme and
eternal power over men by delivering the needy when they cry,
and the poor, and him that hath no helper j by sparing the poor
and the needy, and saving the souls of the needy ; by redeeming
their souls from deceit and violence, and by counting their blood
precious in his sight. He thus lays hold of the very foundations
of society, and works his upward way to the very topmost
stratum, taking with him all men, women, and children, — poor,
feeble, homeless, lost ; and never resting until he has brought
within the circle of his sovereignty, and the helpfulness of his
benediction, men of every grade and quality. Predictions of this
kind could never be fulfilled in any one merely human person-
ality. They encompass too great a scope to be thus fulfilled. It
is the glory of the Son of man that he knows every heart, speaks
every language, is present in every clime, and that throughout
all the days of time he grows upon the consciousness of men with
ever-increasing and ever-brightening vividness. No language is
262 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxil.
foreign to him ; no life is beneath his regard ; no place is too remote
for his visitation ; all things lie before the vision of his love, and
everything is touched by his redeeming power. The earth longs
for some such ruler. All the rulers that have been, all the
monarchs that have come and gone, have surely been charged with
the meaning that there is yet to come a King whose right it is to
reign and whose dominion shall extend over all the earth. Such a
king we see in Christ Jesus. Blessed be his glorious name for
ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory ; Amen, and
Amen. Oh that those who love the Saviour would arise, and clothe
themselves with all their spiritual light, and proclaim to those
who have never heard of the Son of man how great he is, how rich
in promise, how richer still in all that can redeem, touch, and
bless the heart of the world. Jesus Christ trusts himself to the
love of his Church ; he cannot but feel that a Church which
loves him with all its heart will not keep silence respecting his
name, but will go forth from land to land proclaiming it with all
the emphasis of thankfulness and affection. It is for the Church
to say what part it will take in bringing about the glad and
heavenly time when the fruit of the handful of corn which God
himself has sown shall shake like Lebanon and be a store of
nutriment to all mankind. It is not enough to read poetry of
this kind, to be charmed with its sweet cadences, and to regard
it in a merely literary aspect; all that is poetical, tender, and
charming in divine promise and prediction should be turned
into nerve and power and courage, through which the Gospel
shall be preached fearlessly in all lands, however great the
obstructions, however bitter and resolute the hostility. We have
a glorious King to proclaim. We need not be ashamed of his
name, of his descent, of his decrees, of his power. If any man
shall ask who he is, and what right he has to reign, let the
inquirer find the answer in our lives, in our pureness, in our
tenderness, in our charity, in our self-sacrifice ; and let the world
feel that any king who can make men so characterised is worthy
of universal confidence, and is alone fitted to occupy with dignity
and beneficence the throne of universal empire.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, if we are not afraid of thee, we owe our confidence and
boldness to Jesus Christ thy Son, our Saviour and our Priest. By him
we come to thee, boldly asking that we may find grace to help in time
of need. We have no confidence in ourselves, but we have confidence in
the Cross — the key that opens heaven, the way into the broad universe,
because the way into pardon and purity and peace. We come by that
way time after time, and our feet delight to walk it, for in walking it our
hearts glow with sacred fire. Jesus himself joins us, and makes our hearts
burn with love, and sets before us in the furthest distance a light that
makes us glad. We bless thee for the revelation of Christ Jesus, Son of
man, Son of God, Physician of souls, Redeemer of sinners. He is our
supreme joy, our infinite trust ; in him we have peace, and in him we have
eternal joy. _ Cleanse us in his most precious blood, purify our hearts by
faith, drive away from our souls all temptations towards self-trust and
forgetfulness of God, and comfort us with a sense of thy continual presence
in the light and in the darkness, in all the beauty of summer, and in all
the cold and bitterness of winter. May we always know thee to be near,
and, knowing that, our soiils shall have no straitness and narrowness, but
shall live in an infinite liberty; and our joy, like our peace, shall be
unspeakable. Amen.
Psalm Ixxvii. 3.
"I remembered God, and was troubled."
TROUBLED BY THOUGHTS OP GOD.
ALL great doctrines seem to be proved by consciousness ^
and by experience, rather than by mere texts, and cer-
tainly rather than by mental expertness and enterprise. If called
upon to prove the immortality of the soul we should not think
of referring to any book for a proof of it. Whatever belongs
to man is best proved by man himself; man on all such sub-
jects is himself the book. If there are external declarations of
man's immortality, they must find an answer in the man himself,
or they will be but so many starting-points of wordy and angry
controversy. When, therefore, challenged to produce a text
which asserts the immortality of the soul, we produce the soul
264 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalmlxxvii. 3.
itself. Why this discontent with time ? Why this restlessness
in the face, and even in the possession, of all the treasures which
earth can afford ? Why this thirst which rivers cannot slake ?
Why this hunger that eats up all the fatlings of the earth and
all the banquets of time, and then is as keen and unappeased
as if nothing had been devoured ? It is in that dissatisfaction
with time, sense, earth, space, and all that is comprehended
under the word " finiteness," that I find my proof, because my
"consciousness" of immortality. You can argue down a text, but
you have to argue down yourself before you can dismiss, as
the supreme thought of your mind, your spiritual dignity and
your kinship with God. This much illustratively. The im-
mediate subject is not the Immortality, but the apostacy of man.
Why should there be any theological warfare about a Fall ? We
do not need a text to prove it; a text may confirm it, but the
proof, in the deeper sense of that term, is at the very core of
the heart. We know, we feel, we cannot argue, we need not
inquire — in ourselves is the tragical and sublime demonstration.
It is just here that the whole Church has been in danger of
getting wrong. It has been referring to a book outside man,
rather than to a book written in the very heart of man. I have
not to be told that I am fallen ; I know it ; I am but revealed
to myself Revelation in all such matters is but a mirror held
up to the heart's own vision, and in so far as the heart sees
itself in revelation is revelation confirmed in its inspiration and
authority. You cannot get hold of the whole world by anything
that is written in a book, if there be not in the heart to which
the book addresses itself confirmatory and unanswerable evidence.
Were I now to make a business of fashioning the most complete
and trenchant phrases which the English language would enable
me to construct in proof of human depravity, you might escape
my argument and my appeal. It is easy to get out of words,
however intricate the network, however complete the entangle-
ment. The mind swiftly cuts its way out of all this metaphysical
tv\^ine and cordage, and rejoices in a freedom sometimes roughly,
but always certainly, secured. But you cannot escape from
your own consciousness. How our hearts condemn us ! When
a man says, " Thinking of God gives me trouble," we find
in that confession the doctrine which he would never allow to
Psalm Ixxvii. 3-] TROUBLED BY THOUGHTS OF GOD. 265
be proved by subtle argument or Scriptural quotation. That a
creature can be afraid of its Creator, that a child on remembering
its parent can be troubled — these are ironies and contradictions
which we cannot for a moment tolerate without explanation.
That is unnaturalness, that is irrationalism with completeness
and appalling emphasis. Find a child who says, " I remembered
my father, and was troubled," and such an assertion carries with
it one of two things — either something is wrong with the child,
or something is wrong with the parent. There is wrong some-
where. Carry this illustration to its ultimate point in religious
thinking, " I remembered God, and was troubled." Then there
is something wrong in God, or something wrong in man. That
there is something wrong in God we resent as a blasphemy ;
the wrong, therefore, is in us, and in that wrong we find the
proof that we have not only stumbled and halted here and there,
but have fallen, and are before God depraved and helpless.
This appeal gives strength to the Christian preacher; he is
not standing upon so many sharp stones of technicality and
theological phrase ; his Bible is the human heart, his evidence
is human Hfe, his illustrations are in human experience. Where,
then, is the Bible ? It occupies the position of revealing a man
to himself, and of proceeding upon a basis of facts. Revelation
does not create an airy world, it reveals the world to itself
exactly as it is. That is inspiration. Do not fret yourselves
with difficult and recondite inquiries about inspiration ; find it
m the fact that the Bible has anticipated all history, outrun all
competitors in pursuit of the destiny of the race, has answered
all inquiries, covered all ground, and is waiting our progress
that it may advance still further and allure us on by the per-
suasion of light to other advances and broader conquests. Any
book that told a white man he was black would not be regarded
as a revelation, but as a lie. When the Bible tells us that we
are by nature the children of wrath, we are not to fly off" into
metaphysical self-defences, but to come unto such a text as this :
"I remembered God, and was troubled," and there we find a
fact which cannot be accounted for on any other hypothesis than
that man and God have broken asunder at some point the one
from the other. If all great Biblical doctrines which involve
266 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxvii. 3.
human experience could be treated in this way, should
liberate religious thinking from fanaticism and superstition and
bigotry, and should find in the human heart the echo of the
divine voice, and in human experience the best commentary
ever written upon Biblical history and doctrine.
" I remembered God, and was troubled ; " not intellectually,
that must always be the case. Asaph * is not speaking of intel-
lectual engimas ; his knife, as we have already seen in his psalm,
had cut infinitely deeper than any merely intellectual riddle
can ever go. Sir William Hamilton said that if God could be
understood he would not be God. Certainly not. If the finite
can grasp the infinite it is no longer finite. To be God is to be
unknowable, incomprehensible, vaster than the mind seeking to
know. Who can find out the Almighty unto perfection ? Who
can by searching find out God ? No man hath seen God at any
time. God is great, and we know him not. Other subjects
deliver themselves up to our inquiry and solicitude, but we make
no progress in our penetration of the One Mystery. What we
suppose to be progress in that direction is not an outward advance,
but an inward chastening and humbling ; even the creation of the
childlike spirit and the pure heart. Intellectually we make no
advance towards God. In every other direction we seem to be
climbing high and running far, but towards God, intellectually,
we have not advanced one iota. Morally we have ; thanks to
moral cleansing, to the purification of the heart, to the chastening
of the spirit, and to its higher education in spiritual sympathy and
in spiritual prayer, we have come nearer God. But the mind has
always been kept in its right place — searching, never finding,
asking questions of the wind and having its questions carried
away, but no reply brought back.
Asaph, then, is not talking about intellectual trouble, he is
talking about moral distress. Intellect and Conscience take a
ver}' different course in this great matter. Intellect clamorously
demands satisfaction ; Conscience secretly fears the word of
judgment, and would often keep intellect back and ask it to be
quiet, and not to knock so loudly upon doors which— may open
• See note, post, p. 270.
Psalm Ixxvii. 3.] TROLBLMD BY THOUGHTS OF GOD. 267
and cause a Presence to appear that would affright the inquirer.
Intellect says, Where is God ? Conscience desires that the
question may never be answered. Wrong always fears Right.
We may take that as part of the common law of the universe.
Guilt does not want to be discovered by being brought into
visible contrast with Innocence. Guilt is bold in its own den,
■quite heroic indeed, when goading and leading its own vile kin
to some blacker outrage ; but the moment it sees Purity, it blinks
and retires like an owl in sudden sunlight. " Conscience makes
cowards of us all." No bad man can think of God and be com-
fortable. It is the one thought which he is anxious to avoid.
Spare him that, and his wickedness will become his happiness.
Look a little closer into the matter. This moral dread of God
is the highest tribute that can be paid to the Almighty; when it
is felt by the evildoer, such dread is itself a kind of worship.
When we publicly say, " Let us worship God," many join in that
act who are not nominally included in it. When a bad man thinks
he has found a darkness so dense that surely even God's eye
cannot pierce it, that sevenfold night is itself a kind of altar at
which Guilt offers its reluctant homage to Holiness. When you
want to do some bad deed in secret, in the very act of avoiding
God you unconsciously worship him ! Why fear the law ? Why
fear the noontide of light ? Why not rejoice in the whitening
east, and wait till the whole firmament gleams with ineffable
splendour, in order to go forth and work out all the purpose of
your life ? It is because some things must not see the light.
We love darkness rather than light only because our deeds are
evil. How should the bad man know that the night is the black
church in which he worships the God he fears. Thus God
maketh the wrath of man to praise him ; thus hell itself is a kind
of annex of heaven ; thus believing and trembling devils offer a
negative worship, where they have refused a positive allegiance.
The fact that bad men are troubled when they think about God,
that they fear God and would expel him from their thoughts,
should stimulate good men the more emphatically and constantly
to proclaim the existence of God. Tell the tyrant that there is
no God, and he throws down his whip of cords that he may take
up a scourge of scorpions. Tell the base and cruel man that
268 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxvii. 3
there is no White Throne, no Judge, no hereafter, no responsi-
bihty — in a word, no God, and he redoubles his baseness, and
adds a keener accent to his cruelty, and rejoices with a wilder
glee in the agony of his victims. Tell the suiferer that there
is no God, and he ceases to be a martyr, and is only a mur-
dered man. Tell him that God and the angels are waiting
for his liberated spirit, and he feels nor stoning, nor fire, nor
sword, nor saw, for his spirit is already in the light. When you
proclaim atheism, you are not proclaiming a merely metaphysical
theory which men may hold or not hold apart from moral conse-
quences. When you declare atheism, you say practically to the
tyrant, " You have nothing to fear, strength wins, the race is to
the swift, take what you can, there is no law hereafter, you see
everything, carry out your own will." Any theory that would
say that to man, knowing man to be what he is — the savagest of
beasts — is a vile theory, is a licentious theory, a diabolical theory.
Do not treat atheism as one answer, amongst many, to the pro-
blem of the universe. Atheism has a moral side, and on that
moral side it says that "you are only limited by social considera-
tions. Science is Providence, the Magistrate is God, the prison
is hell, you see everything, there is nothing more beyond the
visual line." We know, of course, that we may be referred to
sundry suggestions about social prudence, and personal preser-
vation, and the fear of society, and the dread of public contempt,
but we feel that all these suggestions placed side by side with the
great thought that life is a probation and there is a judgment to
come, cease to demand or deserve respect, and call down our
most vehement denunciation and contempt.
This dislike of God is the true secret of aversion to divine
things. If the Church were a lyceum in which we could discuss
upon equal terms, we might come now and then to talk things
over and exchange notions. If the Bible were one volume of
five hundred of equal authority we might now and then con-
descend to look into it, and to compare it with other volumes and
pass an opinion upon it and so conclude the case. But God has
revealed in the Bible and embodied in Christ means — righteous-
ness, holiness, truth in the inward parts, sincerity in the soul,
right balances, right measures ; it is a moral word. It involves a
Psalm Ixxvii. 3.] TRO UBLED B Y THO UGHTS OF G OD. 269
moral claim, it applies a moral law. We need not wonder that men
should have sometimes felt inclined to give up certain theological
conceptions; it would be a fortune to some men if they could give
up God, they could steal more — they could steal with both hands.
They could lie more eloquently. Now there is an ugly halt in
their lying, it drags and pitches to and fro, here and there ; but if
they could get rid of God, they could lie with oily fluency; they could
smile at the man whom they were deceiving by their falsehoods ;
but the consciousness that God sees, hears, and will at last judge,
has at least a deterrent effect upon such audacity. If you, there-
fore, ask ot me great charity in relation to atheists, and to say
to them, " Of course you are honest doubters, intellectual inquirers,
you are groping in the dark, and I hope you will one day find the
light," I decline the opportunity to show the base charity. God,
to me, is not a metaphysical quantity, he is not part of some
philosophical conception and argument, he is Law, Righteousness,
Justice ! When the bad man has his foot upon me I can cry to
the watching One to bear me witness and to take my part, and I
can refer my case to his arbitrament and leave my vengeance
with him. Understand, therefore, that whilst loving charity,
and welcoming the sweet-faced, bright-eyed angel always, and
standing in her presence with uncovered head, and hailing her
as heaven's chiefest beauty, I cannot, in her name, say to the
atheist, " You are as good as any other man." I distrust the man,
and hate his doctrine. Did not bad people sometimes come
round Jesus Christ ? Yes, they sometimes came intellectually
to him, but not sympathetically. Did not bad people often come
to Christ ? Yes, penitently when not intellectually. They came
because they could cry in his presence, and they were not
ashamed to let him see their tears. They never cried in the
presence of the priest, they never shed tears under the gaze of
the haughty Pharisee ; but, somehow, Christ gives to the very
worst of us a chance of crying, and such tears seem to cleanse
the very beast. We are at least the lighter in spirit after such
penitential tears. If you want to know Christ's relation to evil-
doers, hear what the devils said. When they saw him, they
cried out, " Art thou come to trouble us before the time ? What
have we to do with thee, thou Jesus, Son of God ? " The light
that struck them, shot them through and through, punctured
270 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxvii. 3.
them as with spears and arrows, and hell cried with pain. But
as for bad people like ourselves — we could go quite up to
him and stand at least behind him, and touch the hem of his
garment, and if he caught us, it were heaven upon heaven,
for if the touch healed us, the look would give us immortality.
Oh, thou worst of men, poor, shattered one, come penitently —
hard, intellectual man, Christ has nothing to say to thee, he will
treat thee as a conjuring-loving Herod, and will not do any
miracle in thy sight. But oh, prodigal heart, wayward, wilful —
wilful sinning man, come and say to Christ, " God be merciful
to me a sinner," and he will perform the sublimest of his
miracles — the giving of a new heart !
NOTE.
Psalms of Asaph. — The Psalms of A^aph (whatever be the exact meaning
of the title) have certainly marked characteristics of their own. They use
the general name Elohim, instead of the deeper and more awful name
Jehovah. They dwell especially (see Ps. Ixxvii. 15 ; Ixxxi. 5 ; Ixxx. l)
on "Joseph" and Israel, as distinct from Judah, and in the last case on
" Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasses," the tribes of the western camp in the
wilderness, close to which the Gershonite Levites pitched (see Num. ii.
18-24; iii. 23) ; and in Ps. Ixxviii. 67, 68 on the transference of the supremacy
from Ephraim to Judah. They seem to have a meditative and thoughtful
cast ; as in Ps. Ixxiii., putting before us the great problem of God's moral
government, which forms the subject of the Book of Job; and in the grand
Psalm L, urging the true spirituality of sacrifice and of covenant with God.
They have frequently a national character, of lamentation in Ps. Ixxiv., Ixxix.,
Ixxx., of triumph in Ps. Ixxv., Ixxvi., Ixxxi. One is the first great historical
psalm (Ps. Ixxviii.), surveying the story of Israel from the Exodus to the
choice of David. Similarly Ps. Ixxxiii., in prayer against a confederacy of
enemies, chronicles God's deliverance from Sisera and from Midian in the
ancient days of Gideon. Another is a grave didactic admonition (Ps. Ixxxii.)
to the judges of Israel. If they have not the depth and vigour of the Psalms
of David, they suit well the grave authoritative character of the chief of
the Levites and " the seer." — Bishop Barry.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, thou hast led the blind by a way that they know not, but
thou hast led them to peace and security and joy. All men are blind with
regard to the future ; it is as if we had no vision at all ; we may not boast of
to-morrow, because we know not what one day may bring forth. We know
the history of the day that is gone, but what is coming in the morning not
the wisest man can tell. Thou keepest to-morrow in thine own hand ; but
this we know, that we shall be led and upheld and comforted ; our per-
plexity shall be relieved, the crooked places shall be made straight, the
rough places plain, and even the valleys shall be exalted ; a new song will
be in our mouth at the close of the day>>.if we have to sing of judgment we
shall also have to sing of mercy, for thy way towards us is one of judgment
and of love. If thou dost criticise us, it is that we may be amended ;
if thou dost smite us and wound us, it is that we may be healed with an
immortal healing. Help us to believe this; deliver us from the folly of
thinking that life is chance, a game of fortune, a 'conjuror's trick ; give us
to feel that life is a divine philosophy, a wondrous plan, having relation in
the individual to all other individuals, so that we are a commonwealth, a
brotherhood, one great family, part of us in heaven, part on earth, but still
claiming the same Father, walking by the same law, and looking forward to
the same glorious destiny. Wherein we have been frivolous and foolish,
the Lord pity us, for we are often the sport of the wind, and are driven
before it like dry leaves; wherein we have said, This shall be as we
wish it, the Lord pardon us, for our conceit is often profane. Enable us
henceforward to have no will but thine, never to consult ourselves except in
the spirit of the sanctuary ; then shall wisdom be given to us, the eternal
lamp, the glory from on high, and at night-time we shall walk in splendour,
and the light of the noontide shall be sevenfold. We have taken our life
into our own haud, and we are ashamed of the issue; whenever we have
given ourselves to thee for government, inspiration, direction, comfort,
healing, behold at eventime we have been filled with a new and rapturous
gladness. Pity us wherein our lives are hard ; the gates are many, and the
keys are lost ; the roads are steep, and the wind is bleak, and the clouds are
lull of threatening, and there is no voice of music in the air, — the Lord help
us in that day of sevenfold gloom ; when the house is bare, empty, silent, the
loved ones all out, or gone, or dead, when we hear nothing but the awful
stillness, the Lord cause us to hear his own going in that wilderness ; and
wherein the future is troubled, without certainty of sign or token, so that
we know not whether to go to the right hand or to the left, help us to stand
still like men who are expecting a voice from heaven. This we are enabled
272 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxviii. 14.
to say, because we have been with Jesus and learned of him. Until we knew
him we knew nothing of this prayer ; we were always seeking for solutions
of the enigma of life, and always thinking we had found them ; sometimes
we cast ourselves into the darkness of despair, and said, Let come what will
come, it can bring with, it nothing but death and annihilation ; but now
we have seen the Cross, we have communed with the Son of God, we have
known somewhat of the mystery of his priesthood ; we see the Fath er above
all things, ruling, reigning, governing, shaping, and directing all life ; so we
are happy, yea, glad, we are strong, and cur security is so complete that we
have perfect peace. Praised be the Triune God for this ineffable joy ! Amen.
Psalm Ixxviii. 14.
" In the daytime also he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a
light of fire,"
DAY AND NIGHT LEADING.
DTD some man imagine this ? I thank him. Life is the
sweeter for having such men among us. What a man it
was that thought of this condescension and love on the part of
the miracle-working God described in this most musical psalm !
It was worth being born to imagine this conception of God. It is
so tender, so fatherlike, so comforting ; it is charged to the full
with inspiration of the best kind ; it makes all things feel securer;
it brings to the soul contributions from all quarters, contributions
that increase its wealth, that improve its quality, that inspire its
courage. Are we, then, face to face with a poem ? so be it : the
society is good; the touch of this man has healing in it, — "In the
daytime also he led them with a cloud, and all the night with a
light of fire." Can men imagine such history as that without
anything to go upon, without a germ to start with ? Why we are
told the universe began with a puff of smoke, and was whirled
into its present rotundity and glory by persistent force ; but this
man had nothing to go by. His conception of God is a greater
miracle than the creation of the universe itself, even according
to the suggestions of physical science — for there is no providence,
no father, no rhythm of movement, in all the great action of life ;
it is a tumble, a scramble, a fierce on-rush, a phenomenon of
madness. Yet this man dreamed one night that God in the
daytime led his people with a cloud, and all the night with a
light of fire. Thank God for such a vision : it brings with it its
own authority ; its music is its inspiration, its comfort is its
Psalm Ixxviii. 14.] DAY AND NIGHT LEADING. 273
indisputable credential. We may linger in the society of this
poet ; he may prove to be a prophet.
A startling statement that people were led in the daytime.
Surely there is no need for leadership in the season of light.
When all the heaven is aflame with glory, every man surely
can lead himself. The audacity of the statement begets some
interest in the speaker. An irony of this kind could only be
uttered by a very great man, or by a very small one. Who
needs a guide in the daytime ? What man does not undertake to
do all he has to do when the light is plentiful ? It would seem to
be wholly unnecessary to have leadership when the sun is at the
zenith, or when he is climbing to it, or when he is descending
from it. Surely the sun is an opportunity, and an inspiration, and
a sufficiency. We might talk so with regard to all the outgoing
and experiment and adventure of life. Man has reason. He
says he can put things together. He claims what he calls a
power of inference ; he can set events in a line, mass them,
redistribute them, interrogate them, and draw out of them what
he calls conclusions. All this is done by virtue of the reasoning
faculty — that distinguishing token of man, that sign-manual of semi-
divinity. What need, therefore, has reason for being led ? Reason
says, I am leader, not led. Not only has man reason, he^ has
experience. He claims to know what he is about. He bristles
up into a kind of Papal conceit of infallibility when he says, I
know what has happened, and therefore I can tell practically
what is about to occur, and 'yesterday shall be the teacher of
to-day and the hint of to-morrow. There is sound sense in that.
Reason certainly has a great function to perform ; experience
ought not to be lost upon men ; history ought to have something
to say at the council-table of every man, in the family, and in the
counting-house, and on the high-road. This is all admitted.
Then some men have peculiar natural sense, nous, gumption,
sagacity. In a moment they can say, That is not the road ; this
is a mistake ; that ought not to have been done ; the right way
lies otherwhere. Generally, they are right. They are what may
be called, and justly, strong-minded men. Can they not be left to
go out by themselves, to find out all the rest when they have
found out so much ? Does it not " stand to reason " that in the
VOL. XII. 18
274 T^^ PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxviii. 14.
daytime men do not require to be led ? Then again there is that
greatschool which is denominated human society. Men help one
another. Men learn from one another. The mistakes of others
ought to be warnings to those who look on. When men fall in
the way those who follow should beware lest they too come to
the same pitfall. Here, then, we have reason, experience, natural
sagacity, human society, a thousand other ministries all operating
in the daytime : what need have we for divinity, supernaturalness,
providence,— that higher rule which is called divine ? A very
proper question, admitting of a very satisfactory reply. It is in
the daytime men go most astray. Very few people go astray at
night. There is a natural fear, which becomes a natural caution
and restriction of liberty, and men say they had better wait until
the light comes before they go out on any adventure. How
tempting is the daylight ; we had not thought of it so before, but
it is in reality an infinite temptation. We can see so far, we can
comprehend so much ; we can see where the river goes down,
down, down, and turns round into mj'stery. Let us pursue the
fluent line ! The whole horizon seems to be set with spectres
that tempt men away over swamp and bog, and hill and dale,
and through wood and water, and then we begin to realise what
it is that has taken us from home as we grasp the mocking cloud.
Now we think of it, it is really in the "daytime" that men make
fools of themselves, by outwitting their own sagacity, and by
following things that have no reality and that will not condescend
to be appropriated to individual uses. How well it would have
been for some men had there been no daylight ! How much there
is in that daylight to excite the spirit of adventure ! Yet, properly
used, it is the very blessing of God, the great opportunity of life,
— so nearly do death and life lie together. There never can be
but a step between life and death. When we say that death is
a long way off, we say what we do not know. Death can never
be far away in any mortal state. God led his people in the day-
time with a cloud. It required a poet to think of that. It is just
the thing for leadership — a wraith, a spectre, half-thought, half-
thing, almost alive, taking up no room, or taking up so little as to
leave space enough for those who want it : and there it goes ! A
man must have sharp eyes to see some clouds, — they are so thin,
SO vaporous, almost invisible, but always there, and when moving
Psalm Ixxviii. 14.] DAY AND NIGHT LEADING. 375
always moving in the right direction. We look for earthquakes,
and report them ; we tell all the tragedy of the volcano — how
it rumbled, and heaved, and burst, and spit its infinite lava ;
we are fond of emphasis : but what is leading life in the day-
time is but a cloud. It requires to be watched, yea, looked for ;
its very thinness is part of its religious influence ; it may move so
noiselessly that unless we keep our whole attention fixed we may
miss the movement, and be left without guide or sign or token or
help in the infinite wilderness. Never let it be said, Thy servant
was busy here and there, and the cloud passed without notice.
" Busy here and there ? " no ; a man can never be busy both
here and there : he is ruined by the division of the places. A
man can only be busy either here or there. We cannot serve
God and mammon. The very cloudiness of the revelation of
providence is a religious appeal, and ought to awaken religious
vigilance and keep us on the alert, for at any moment, without
blast of trumpet, the cloud may arise and move. Ye can discern
the face of the sky : how is it ye cannot discern the signs of the
times ? God has other monitors than earthquakes. Oftentimes
he is not in th6 great wind at all ; he comes through the medium
of a still small voice, and whispers eternity into the trembling
heart. Blessed are they that watch and wait and hope. No life
need be without guidance. We must restrain impetuosity, and
self-will, and defiance, which spoils everything, and be quiet,
solemn, expectant. " He that believeth shall not make haste ; "
" in your patience possess ye your souls." Lose self-control, and
the battle is lost also. The quiet waiting man always wins, — in
religious phraseology, is brought to his desired haven, and is
blessed with an abundance of benediction. Never imagine, then,
that in the daytime men need no leadership. Men may boast and
least suspect themselves when they are conscious of their own
ability. " Pride goeth befoi-e destruction, and an haughty spirit
before a fall." When a man says he is perfectly equal to the
occasion, he knows every enemy and every difficulty on the road,
and desires to be let alone ; watch him, for you will see him
no more. Fools are crowned and beheaded on the same day.
Even the night need not shut out the light of God, — "all the
night " he led them " with a light of fire." There must be night.
276 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxviii. 14.
That is strange, but true. There must be darkness. Why
cannot we always have l^oliday, festival, noontide ? Why not
have an infinite monotony of glory ? If we close the Bible, we
do not alter the facts of life. Better keep the Bible at hand as
the deepest and wisest interpreter of all the mystery of existence.
As we have before seen, it shirks nothing. This is no book
with dainty fingers that will only touch dainty things. It blurts
out the whole truth about everything. It stands up sometimes
and talks so loudly and frankly that we shut our ears lest people
should overhear who will only by their presence excite our
shame. It goes up to the greatest questions, and solves them.
It takes up little children and kisses them, and sets them down
again to grow into men. It says to sorrow, What is the meaning
of these red eyes and stained cheeks ? Come near me, poor
weeper, and rest awhile; I will give thee a new chance in life.
The Bible comes into the night of our experience, and says, I
will set it with stars all over, so that there shall not be room to
put another diamond in all the coronal ; and as for this cold
night, I will light a fire — not a crackling flame, but a glowing
fire — and the darkness shall make it the more precious. How
providence adapts its communications to circumstances ! A cloud
would have been no use at night; a fire would have been wholly
out of keeping with the poetry of daylight. Providence knows
what is best. The fitness of things is a religious argument.
It would be a marvellous thing for any man to take up an
alphabet, ten thousand alphabets, and to shake them out of a
sack so that they would fall into Paradise Lost. Yet Paradise
Lost is nothing but an arrangement of the alphabet. I am not
aware that that miracle has ever been performed. So it is an
infinite marvel that life in all its activities, impulses, selfishness,
goodness, badness, tragedy, comedy, should be but so many
unrelated pieces all shaken down out of heaven into human
history. No. There is a shaping Hand about. There is a
Spirit somewhere. What is my proof of the existence of God?
My own lifetime, that is a tract I never bought, and cannot sell,
and the more I read it the more I pray.
Providence brings with it not only a light at night-time, but "a
light of fire." It might have been another light, but it would not
Psalm Ixxviii. 14.] DAY AND NIGHT LEADING. z^-j
have fitted all the occasion with so exquisite an adaptation. The
night is cold, so the light is of fire. Other light may glare and
dazzle, gleam upon the eyes so as to hurt the vision, but oh !
there are two comforts in the household fire — the warmth and
the light; not a light that could be seen afar, but a light just
adapted to the next step or two — and so warm, it makes the
house. There can be no house in the winter unless the fire
is lighted. Even the library looks a more living library the
moment you apply a match to the fuel in the grate; the fire and
the books seem to know one another, seem to have been waiting
for one another, and all the authors say. Now is our opportunity ;
let us confer and grow wise. And the fire is the crown of the
winter. It is the very centre and joy of our Christmas festivity.
However far you stray away in the snow it is the fire in the
house that is getting ready for you the very delight of your
enjoyment. Thus providence adapts its communications : here
it is a book, there it is a conscience, yonder it is both ; here an
infinite civilisation, and yonder a barbarism that is waiting,
struggling with its men, hardly knowing which is upward, which
is downward, which is right, which left, but still working out its
own grim problem. Could the world do without its barbarism
any more than the earth could do without its sea ? There is
more water than land on what we call the earth. There may
be more barbarism than civilisation, there may be more wicked-
ness than goodness, there may be more desert than garden ; and
it is not for us to explain why these things should be or how
they came to be; the counsel is in heaven, and we are living
from without and from above, and by-and-by we shall be called
in to hear how it all came to pass, and how the very darkness
was made into a temple, how the very wilderness was needful
for the culture of our life, and how our necessity was one of our
chief riches. How regularly the day comes, how regularly the
night ; how regularly, therefore, the cloud and the pillar of
glowing illuminating fire ! But monotony itself need not be
oppressive. Life is monotonous, and yet we could not give up
the monotony. We could not give up our daily bread — bread in
the literal sense. What must go if we economise ? The luxury,
the rich wine, the dainty confection : now let the bread go ! — no !
never 1 The bread must stop, whatever goes. No man begins
278 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxviii. 14.
by throwing the bread out, and keeping the confectionery. There
is a great lesson here for the culture that is higher than the
sustenance and training of the body. Jesus Christ described
himself as " bread," — not as some luxury invented by highest
skill ; he called himself " water," — not some liqueur compounded
by cunning fingers as the expression of a mind which alone held
the secret of the concoction. Said Jesus Christ, " I am the bread
of life." Blessed Christ, that was divine. No other man could
have dreamed of saying that. How true it is, and gracious ! Said
he, " I am the water of hfe." Now we think of it, that simplicity
is its own deity. Had he said, I am juice wrung out of rarest
roots in places untrodden by human feet, and the price of the
nectar is very high, we should have called him a dealer in
nostrums, an empiric, a fraud ; but coming closely to us, and
saying, " I am the bread of life. ... I am the water of life. ... I
am a cloud in the daytime. ... I am a fire at night," he speaks
our native language, works along the line of our conscious
necessity, offers us the things we cannot do without. Men tire
of luxury, — men never tire of bread : men tire of inventions and
philosophies and new religions and fine experiments, but there
stands ready for renewal of intercourse and love the blessed
gospel of salvation through Jesus Christ. Sometimes it has to
stand back, and it can bear the aff"ront. It is divine, because it
can bear to be insulted. You never know whether a man is a
Christian or not until you have insulted him. You cannot tell a
Christian by his confession, his words, his creed. Many a man
would sign a creed a mile .long if it would serve his purpose.
You know what he is when you have struck him in his weakest
point. Jesus Christ bears affronts, bears neglect, waits to be
recognised, says. They will come again ; they are going away
to-day, and leave me, because some dreamer has thrown a spell
upon them ; but they will come back again to-morrow or on the
third day, and I will keep the door ajar ; I would not for the
world they should think I had gone too : the time will come
when I must go ; but I will let the last moment throb out before
I turn my back upon the world I have redeemed. Many men
have gone away, leading themselves by day and by night, saying
they have no need of the supernatural and no need of a guiding
providence, and they will take result whatever it be. A few
Psalmlxxviii. ]4-J DAY AND NIGHT LEADING. 2/9
days' hunger will work miracles upon them. Do not run after
them too soon. Nothing brings a man to his senses so soon
as having nothing to eat. A week's hunger has a marvellous
influence upon the temper. Starvation leads a man to alter his
estimate of food. He who went out an overfed glutton, finding
fault with everything, will after a month's absolute starvation be
the easiest man to please in all the world. So it shall be in
mental hunger, in spiritual desire. " Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not
a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the
words of the Lord." Blessed famine, gaunt teacher, grim,
ghastly monitor, come ! for some dainty, overfed, pampered
epicures have turned away from the living God, and are making
little divinities of stone and wood and gold and silver. Bring
them home again, thou gauntest Leader sent from God. If, then,
provision has been made for our leadership in the daytime and
in the night-time, our course is clear. We must accept the
divinity that shapes our ends. We shall be more conscious of
it the less conscious we are of ourselves. What is the name of
that action by which a man projects himself out of words ? Faith.
It is not only a theological term, it is a most practical word ; it
indicates the supreme effort of life, that marvellous leap which
finds its Hfe in eternity, its springs, upper and nether, in God.
He pleases God who has most faith. Without faith it is impos-
sible to please him. We walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is
not indolence. Faith is not fatalism. Faith is not a languid
acceptance of whatever may occur. Faith is a burning power,
a tremendous energy, an infinite self-control, a trust that says,
" God cannot lie."
PRAYER.
Lord, evermore give us the bread of life, which cometh down from heaven.
Thou hast created this hunger, and thou wilt satisfy it. Thou only canst
give us what we need. Every good gift is thine, and every perfect gift ; and
thou givest unto thy children that which will make them still more thine,
because under its nutriment they will grow up into manjiood, into beauty,
into all nobleness : Lord, evermore give us this bread ! We labour for the
meat which perisheth ; we would labour more for the bread which endureth
unto everlasting life. (Herein is wisdom, true sagacity, and a right accept-
ance of the mystery of life. May we be found wise in these matters, and
not fools. Let the time past more than suffice wherein we have wrought
folly and wickedness, and may we rise betimes, a great while before it is
day, that we may be ready to employ all the light thou givest unto us in
doing good. If we have these dtsires, we can trace them to thyself Once
we knew nothing of their inspiration and their passion ; but thou hast come
down upon us with a mighty and gracious power, and now we are the sons
of Gcd, — not that we have already attained, neither are already perfect, but
in our desire, our aspiration, our supreme wish, we are even now in heaven.
For such miracles we bless the almightiness of God, but most we bless the
all-compassion of his heart. When we were yet sinners Christ died for us;
he was deliver^ d for our offences, and raised again for our justification. We
would eat his flesh and drink his blood that we may have life abiding in us.
This is life eternal, to know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
thou hast sent. Jesus came that we might have life, and that we might
have it more abundantly, as in wave upon wave when the sea is blown with
a great wind. May we not be partially alive, but whollj^living through
and through, body, soul, and spirit, having no faculty of slumber, but every
desire of the soul purified and ennobled, and in beneficent action : thus
shall our life be a daily sacrifice ; we shall live and move and have our
being in God, and shall be borne above all that is of the nature of cloud
and fear and doubt and tempest; thus shall we be in heaven whilst yet
we are travelling and toiling upon the earth. Our souls desire the bread of
life, corn from heaven, angels' bread ; we would eat and drink abundantly at
the Lord's banqueting table, whilst his banner over us is love : there would
we quench our desires in ineffable satisfaction, there would we abound unto
God's glory because of our eloquent thankfulness. Help us to believe that
what we take at thy table is meant to be used in nobler strength for the
good of men ; thus may the bread we eat, which is sent down from heaven,
be turned into all manly and useful conduct, so that our strength itself may
be offered in sacrifice unto God. Guide us with thine eye ; hold us in the
Psalm Ixxviii. 25.] ANGELS' FOOD. 281
hollow of thine hand ; may we feel that we are precious unto thee in Christ
Jesus thy Son. These great revelations thou hast made to us whilst we
lingered at the Cross. If at first we did not understand thy love, thou didst
not chide us with great judgments ; thou wast patient with us, thou didst
continue to teach us, and instruct us, and lead us by a way that we knew
not, and when we began to see the meaning of Jesus Christ's love then we
were glad as men who see a great light. Confirm thy people in their most
holy faith, building and stablishing them in all strength, and comforting
them with all needful encouragement. Thus shall thy Church glorify
th3'self, and thou, Son of God, shall be incarnated again, in the spirit and
conduct of thy followers. When life is hard with us, be near our side ;
when reason is shocked and almost affrighted from her throne, do thou give
steadiness to the mind ; when we have done wrong and have felt the sting
of hell in the heart, may we not be swallowed up of despair, but may some
evangel come to us, some sweet music-note from heaven, that will tell us
that even the worst may die with Christ and rise again. Save us all. May
no wanderer be lost ; may the least likely be set in the front, that so being
urged by those behind and nourished and comforted we may be brought
safely home. Make the sick-chamber a church ; make the lonely sea a
temple of thy revelation for those who are tossed thereon ; make the far-
away land burn with somewhat of the sacredness of home when the Sabbath
dawns upon its solitude ; and bring us, up high hills, or across angry waves
or through burning deserts, or by blooming garden paths, — as thou wilt, but
bring us altogether at last, into Christ's presence, that we may serve Christ's
crown. Amen.
Psalm Ixxviii. 25.
" Man did eat angels' food."
ANGELS POOD.
THE reference, of course, is to the manna which fell in the
wilderness ; and there many people might be content to
leave the whole case. We soon tell by our appearance what
food we have been eating. You cannot hide the bill of fare.
The face is a tell-tale. The more the sensualist eats the greater
a sensualist he appears to be. He feeds the flesh. He gets
coarser every day ; what little music there was in his voice is
all dead and gone ; he has choked it with the food of beasts.
Once there was a little child in him, well spoken of, thought to
be the germ of a fine man ; but that child-angel is dead. Every
mouthful of meat the man now takes makes him more beast-like.
You may eat out of the very basin with Christ, but if you eat
with an Iscariot's digestion, it will turn into devil. Say not that
it is of no consequence what a man eats. It is of vital consequence.
282 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxviii. 25.
The mystery, however, is this, that even the best food may be
turned into evil nutriment, according to the nature of the man
who partakes of it. All God's wheatfields are lost upon some
natures. They would seem to have put themselves beyond the
range of God's almightiness. What we take we turn into our
own nature. The lion grows as a lion the more he eats ;
though it be of the daintiest food it all becomes lion. So with
us bodily, intellectually, spiritually : we tell what our food is.
The glutton grows flesh : call him successful when the beast can
grow no more; hang his prize on his neck and let him lie down,
a specimen of brutish nature. The poet turns his food into
poetry ; the suppliant at God's throne takes his food and becomes
a more eloquent intercessor. The nature determines everything.
Herein is a great mystery of nature, of physiology, of moral
purposes controlling physical appetences, of spiritual inspiration
subduing everything to its own design. Yet there stands the
law, that we turn whatever we appropriate into our own nature
— the lion into lion, the wolf into wolf, the angel into angel,
the poet into poet. Blame not in all cases the food ; there are
instances in which it is to be blamed : but how much depends
upon the nature ! how mysterious are the processes of assimila-
tion 1 Our intellectual food determines our intellectual quality.
We can tell what books a man has been reading by his con-
versation. Why ask a catalogue from the student ? Simply
listen to him ; the catalogue is of no use. He may have gone
through all the books, and they have left no impression upon
him ; he must be judged by his intellectual quality, bulk, force,
aptitude ; there need be no doubt whatever as to the process
through which he has passed ; your exammation may be a farce ;
the man tells his pwn tale by the first sentence he utters, by the
first question he propounds. If we keep companionship with
wise men we grow wiser if we profit by the opportunities which
have been put within our reach : we may be the more foolish,
because our companionship may have been used to feed our
vanity ; it may have been so used as but to enable us to tell
others on what a ladder we have climbed, how we have simply
climbed into nothing. But the rule taken in its natural operation
ought to stand thus : That the companion of the wise shall be
wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed. We cannot
Psalm Ixxviii. 25.] ANGELS' FOOD. 283
now, supposing ourselves to have profited by our study and
experience, read the books we were wont to read many years
ago. Is there a more interesting exercise within its own limits
than to take up the books that used to charm us ? What has
occurred ? Nothing in the books themselves ; they are just what
they always were : why, then, not revive old delights ? Why not
re-enter into old enthusiasms regarding them ? A change has
taken place in the reader. Now he knows what was meant
by the man who said : "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I
understood as a child, I thought as a child : but when I became a
man, I put away childish things." Yet the things are useful in
their own time. There is a contempt that is ungrateful. The boy
needed one kind of food, and the man requires another. How
foolish it is for persons to suppose that they must always remain
at the same point, with the same elections, and the same aversions,
and must never change ! That is not progress ; that is fatuity,
insanity. There be those who say that such-and-such persons
were wont to be content with such-and-such things, therefore
they ought still to be content with them. That is an insult to
the genius of progress. Once you were quite content to lie in the
little cradle : why do j'^ou not lie there now ? That is what you
were used to : why do you claim any larger accommodation ?
Remember your beginnings, and go back to your cradle I Once
you were content with little painted toys, they amused you by
the hour : what do you now want with painted picture, and poem
in stone, and great castle, and an environment marked all round
with what used to be considered luxury ? Why did you not carry
your toys in your pocket that you may amuse yourself down to
old age? How we used to be delighted then with certain books !
They were enough for us, they just touched our terminal line j
they were a little above us, still we could avail ourselves of their
suggestion, and we thought ourselves philosophers because we
understood them in some degree : now we smile at the couplets
that used to make us wild with joy, and turn away from the
men who charmed us like magicians, asking for some, it may be,
ruder, sterner, directer stuff, that touches the life in its pain, that
thrusts a spear in the blood, and makes us plunge forward with
fiery eagerness towards some further goal. Milk for babes,
strong meat for men, angels' corn for those who can appropriate
284 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxviii. 25.
and assimilate celestial food. Grow in grace : ask for larger
supplies of the best material, the material upon which you can
feed the soul, nourish it and strengthen it, enlarging its capacities,
Rnd qualifiying it for the ready and useful discharge of all the
functions and responsibilties of life.
Our intellectual food tells upon our face. You can tell when
a man has been neglecting reading ; you can tell when a man has
been a diligent student — not by formal beauty, over which he
has no control, but by expression, and radiance, and force, and
quality, not always to be described in words ; you feel that he
has been eating with the prophets, and he has been finding
nutriment in corn from heaven. There is no deception about
this matter. They who have eyes made to see, and that are
sharpened by keen uses, can tell every new wrinkle that comes
into a familiar face, and can see where light begins to dawn upon
the flesh and almost transfigure it into spirit. If this be so intel-
lectually, it is infinitely more so religiously. Men speak about
falling from grace as if it were some mysterious process : what
is easier to detect than that a man has gone down in the
spirituality of his tone ? At first you cannot quite understand
he change, because you think it impossible that such a man
can have abridged his prayers, slurred over his sacrifices, waited
perfunctorily at the altar ; you will not allow the heart of trust
to suspect a betrayal of the Lord ; yet the talk is very different,
the estimate of things is quite changed, the outlook is no longer
vast, but is a prison of clouds, a line of encroaching night : what
is the reason of this ? The man has not been praying seven
times a day ; if he has been praying the number of times, his
window has not been opened in the right direction ; if he has
been through the ceremony, he has omitted the sacrifice; if he
has used the words, he has lost the blood. Only blood is accepted
in heaven. Is that to be understood in some merely literal sense?
Then indeed it had better not be understood. It is to be under-
stood in the sense that nothing is accepted of God that does not
carry with it life, fire, consecration, absolute love, — that is blood ;
all else is a foul and detestable offering. Hence, it becomes
comparatively easy to tell when a man has not been eating angels'
food, or walking on the right levels, or keeping up his commerce
Psalm Ixxviii. 25.] ANGELS' FOOD. 285
with heaven ; for now any frivolity will satisfy him ; the fool
easily laughs, the empty nature is soon filled ; but the immortal
disdains the table of mortality. We are all eating, we are always
eating; all life is a process of absorption, appropriation, assimila-
tion. Eating, sleeping, praying, doing business, conducting all
the processes of life, we are appropriating all the time, and
what we do will reveal itself in the poet's eye, or in the beast's
vacancy.
Under what circumstances may men be said to eat angels' food,
corn of heaven, bread sent down from God ? When earth cannot
satisfy him any longer, the good food is beginning to tell upon
him. Earth was enough for a long time ; it was called " the
great globe," and men passed up and down rebuking the dreamers
who called the earth a vale of tears, a land of shadows, a garden
of graves ; but Httle by little, imperceptibly as to the advance of
time, man began to feel that he had not standing-ground enough
here ; he said. This world is not so great as I was told it was :
what is the measure of things in their totality ? What are these
lights that gleam upon me from on high ? Are they flecks of
amber which some cunning hand has set there to be gazed at ?
or are they golden portals that fall back upon infinite palaces ?
I feel as if I must go up there, as if I had some rights of property
there, as if there I could understand the language, and begin the
life of the place at once. Why lift up your eyes on high ? Why
not look below you ? Because there is nothing to see below me.
This poor little earth has but its transient opportunities, and if
it be vigilant and faithful it may grow a little in the summer-time,
and then want a whole winter's repose for the poor little effort
which it put forth in the middle of the year : things here only
grow in handfuls : I feel as if yonder " infinite day excludes the
night, and pleasures banish pain."
What has a man been doing who talks thus ecstatically? He
has been eating angels' food, and he is growing angel-like ; already
he is more in heaven than on earth ; the food is telling upon him.
A man may be said to eat angels' food when he grows in
spirituality. You can no longer deceive him by the letter, or
limit him by the narrow dogma; he says, All these things are
286 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxviii. 25.
beginnings, alphabets, hints, dawns ; but yonder is the meaning
of it all : I seek a country out of sight ; I will not have your land
flowing with milk and honey, a little Canaan that could be
measured by field-surveyors ; I pant, I yearn, for a land far off,
infinite as God's infinity : meanwhile, being here, I will do the
day's work, not with a hireling's industry, but with the con-
secration of one who is anointed from on high ; this work shall
not be spoiled because of its littleness, but done with all the
patience and care and hopefulness of love : yet all the while I will
feel that I would not do this little work in this little space, but
for what lies beyond : an eternal impulse makes me do the
temporal service. Growing in spirituality is not a metaphysical
process ; it is concrete, intelligible, patent to the observation ; it
is not a growth in mere sentiment, it is not an enrichment of
the nature in mere foam of ecstasy and rapture : it is a larger
outlook, a firmer grasp of things eternal, a clearer view of distant
things; it is a growth in preparation, in the estimate of relative
values, in sympathy with God. Growing so, the whole world
changes ; its duties become light, its burdens become compara-
tively easy, its wealth a handful of dust that may be thrown up
and caught again and laid down with a conjuror's ease. Growth
in spirituality means larger intercourse with God, keener per-
ception of religious essences and moral affinities. Growth in
spirituality means a throwing-off" of mere burdensomeness and
ceremony and ritual ; a forsaking of the fleshpots of Egypt, and
a yearning for the society of angels and spirits, blessed and
immortal. There is no immodesty in claiming that there may
be direct consciousness ol these things. Where there could be
any boasting about them that very boasting would destroy the
reality of the claim. The nearer a man comes to God the more
he says, "I exceedingly fear and quake." Moses did not grow
in pious frivolity when he grew in intimacy with God. Now and
again a man or two might follow him up the mountains so far ;
but there is a point on the mountains of God where every man
must break oft from every other man, and go up alone. How
high the hill, how solemn the silence, how infinite the outlook !
Does the mountain tremble under the man's feet ? Is heaven
coming down upon him like a burden to crush him ? Is the air
peopled with innumerable spirits ? There is no one with
Psalm Ixxviii. 25.] ANGELS' FOOD. 287
whom to converse, with whom to exchange fears, an exchange
that might mitigate the terror ; there is nothing but solitude.
We can now do better than eat angels' food, a larger feast has
been prepared for us, — we can eat the body and drink the blood
of Christ : " Our fathers did eat manna in the desert ; as it is
written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus
said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you
not that bread from heaven ; but my Father giveth you the true
bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh
down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world." When the
disciples heard that they felt a new hunger in the soul, and they
said, "Lord, evermore give us this bread." When Jesus Christ
spoke about the water, he made the poor woman at the well
thirsty, so that she said, " Sir, give me this water, that I thirst
not, neither come hither to draw." What a way he had of preach-
ing his gospel ! When he said " bread," the heart hungered ;
when he said "water," the soul thirsted, — "As the hart panteth
after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God."
"Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life : he that cometh
to me shall never hunger ; and he that believeth on me shall
never thirst. ... I am that bread." Other men have died,
said Christ, whatever they have eaten : " Your fathers did eat
manna in the wilderness," and called it angels' food, " and are
dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that
a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread
which came down from heaven : if any man eat of this bread,
he shall live for ever : and the bread that I will give is my flesh,
which I will give for the life of the world." This is the table
that is spread for the soul's satisfaction to-day. " Assuredly,
assuredly, I say unto you. Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of
man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth
my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life ; and I will
raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and
drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. . . . This is
that bread which came down from heaven : not as your fathers
did eat manna, and are dead : he that eateth of this bread shall
live for ever," They were offended, because they were literalists,
288 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxviii. 25.
and did not understand such poetry as this. At once they
seized the most obvious idea, and thought of actually and
literally eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus Christ!
but he said : " The flesh profiteth nothing : the words that I speak
unto you, they are spirit, and they are life," — not the words as
a doctrine, but the words he was now speaking about flesh and
blood : when he said " flesh," he meant truth ; when he said
" blood," he meant life : when he said " eat my flesh and drink
my blood," he said. Appropriate me, take me, have none other
but me. Into J this mystery the soul must enter if it would
hold high sacrament. Without a realisation of this mystery,
the sacrament becomes but a ceremony, a vain show, an empty
ritual. What is it, then, that becomes the true factor in all the
sacred emblemism and sacred worship ? It is faith. Still faith
removes mountains, works miracles, creates and establishes vital
transformations. Faith is the soul's life. " He that cometh to
God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them
that diligently seek him." Without faith it is impossible to
please him. Faith takes the bread, and turns it into the flesh
of Christ; faith takes the emblematic wine, and makes it sacri-
ficial blood. All that is outward and literal is but initial and
helpful. If we stop there, we are like men who have gone to
seek a king, and have halted beside the gate ; yea, we may have
opened the gate and gone inside, but we have gone no further.
The king is not at the gate ; the gate but opens upon the palace ;
we must pass the gate, ascend the road, go higher, and ask
for the presence-chamber itself; and if Reason opened the gate.
Faith must complete the pilgrimage, and originate the introduction,
and secure the exchange of communications. Lord, increase our
faith 1
Let not the bad man think that he can disguise the processes
through which he is conducting his life. Let that be insisted
upon. The countenance cannot be made to tell a permanent lie.
For a time it may be painted and decorated, for a moment or
two a smile may light upon it which may deceive the simple and
ihe ilnwary ; but the countenance, caught at off" times, watched
narrowly all the day, searched through and through with a seer's
eyes, tells at what tavern a man has been drinking, at what
Psalm Ixxviii. 25.] ANGELS' FOOD.
hostelry he has been sleeping, at what table he has been feeding
his hunger. The most successful hypocrite can get through but
one moment's real deception with wise men. Even the complete-
ness of his mimicry tells against him. He is too successful in his
mimetics. Were he to stumble and blunder now and then, such
halting might be a tribute to his honesty ; but living for the
occasion, appealing to the immediate judgment, snatching a prize
with a dishonest hand, he will be blown out, and there shall
come down upon his candle, already far burnt, one drop of
rain from heaven, and with a noise it shall go out and be lighted
no more. The triumphing of the hypocrite is short ; the candle
of the wicked shall be put out, and nothing shall be known of
it but an evil odour. There is bread enough in your Father's
house : why perish with hunger? Let your hunger prove your
manhood ; let your necessities prove the divinity of your origin ;
let that panting for other water, that hunger for other food, which
must now and again seize the soul that is not dead, testify to
the fact that you were made to be guests of God, that you were
meant to be children of the Most High. " Ho, every one that
thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money ;
come ye, buy, and eat ; yea, come, buy wine and milk without
money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for
that which is not bread ? and your labour for that which
satisfieth not ? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which
is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." " Eat and
drink abundantly, O beloved." The Bible is the hospitable book.
It is always preparing a table for the hungry, opening fountains
in the desert for the thirsty and the weary. " The Spirit and
the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say. Come. And
let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take
the water of life freely." " In the last day, that great day of the
feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying. If any man thirst, let him
come unto me, and drink." " If thou knewest the gift of God,
and who it is that saith to thee. Give me to drink ; thou wouldest
have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water," —
springing water, water that comes up out of the rock, pure as the
crystal river that flows fast by the throne of God. Lord, evei-
more give us this bread 1 Lord, evermore give us of this wate r
of life !
VOL. XII. ig
Psalm Ixxxv. 6.
" Wilt thou not revive us again : that thy people may rejoice in thee ? "
THE REVIVAL OP RELIGION.
IT is well known that many Christians have come to have a
distaste for the word " revival " when used with reference
to religious work. To some extent I share that distaste. There
has been so much exaggeration, so much fanatical excitement,
and so much transient profession, that we cannot wonder at the
revulsion which many sober-minded Christians feel when they
hear the very word " revival." We believe that all got-up
revivals are bad. You cannot organise a true revival; we
cannot treat spiritual influences as fixed quantities; as the wind
bloweth where it listeth, so, often, is that sudden, profound, and
irresistible impulse which rouses the Church, and breaks in
beneficently upon the deadly slumber and delusive security of
the world. As a matter of fact, there have been extraordinary
visitations of divine influence ; there have been seasons when
the Holy Ghost has made the earthquake, the fire, the rending
wind, and the stormy tempest his ministers, and when men have
been shaken with a wholesome fear, not knowing the way, yet
feeling the nearness of the Lord. There have been great birth-
days in the Church, days on which thousands have been crucified
with Jesus Christ, and multitudes have begun to sing loudly and
lovingly his praise. There have been days of high festival in
the sanctuary, when the silver trumpets have sounded, when
prodigals have come back to sonship, when shepherds have
returned with recovered flocks, when women have found the
piece that was lost, and the dead have risen to immortal life.
There have, too, been times when the people have realised with
special vividness the personality and life-giving power of the
Holy Ghost; when they have had the keys of interpretation
Psalm Ixxxv. 6.] THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 291
wherewith to unlock the boundless treasures of the divine word ;
when prayer was as the speech of love that never wearies ; when
the Sabbath shed its sacred glory over all the days of the week ;
when God's house shone with heavenly lustre, and all life
throbbed in joyful harmony with the purposes of God. We refer
to these things as to mattei s of fact, and in doing so we wish to
know whether such delights cannot be more permanently secured.
At the same time let it be clearly said that we could not bear the
strain of an ecstatic life ; we are not constituted for constant
rapture ; we have to contend with the deceitfulness of the flesh ;
we have to fight and suffer upon the earth when the spirit would
gladly escape on the wings of the morning to untroubled and
hallowed scenes. Still, there is danger in supposing that because
we cannot always live at the highest point of spiritual enthusiasm,
we may be content with low attainments, or with a neutrality
which attracts no attention to itself. Now there is something
between the flame of a blazing ecstasy and the grey ashes of a
formal profession ; there is a steady and penetrating glow of
piety, there is a fervour of love, there is an animated intelligence,
a zealous affection, a godly yearning for personal progress and
social evangelisation, which, when found together, make up a life
of delight in God and blessed service for men. To promote this
realisation we offer a few suggestions of whose value you can
quickly form a sound opinion.
First of all, we are more and more assured that, as individual
Christians, and as churches of Jesus Christ, we need to be very
clear in our doctrinal foundations. Do let us get a distinct idea
of the principal points in the Christian faith. Beginning with
the doctrine of sin, let us strive after God's view of it. To him
sin is infinitely hateful; he cannot tolerate it with the least
degree of allowance ; it troubles his otherwise perfect and happy
universe ; it despoils human nature ; it overthrows all that is
divine in manhood ; it calls into existence the worm that gnaws
for ever ; it is the cause of death and the source of hell. To
under-estimate the heinousness of sin is to put ourselves out of
the line of God's view; to understand sin is to understand
redemption. Sin interprets the Cross ; sin shows what is meant
by God's love. Have we, as individuals and churches, lost the
292 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxxv. 6.
true notion of sin? Is it no longer infinitely abominable to us?
Is it toned down to something almost indistinguishable ? We
cannot be right in our relation to Jesus Christ, we cannot be just
to his holy Cross, until we regard sin with unutterable repug-
nance, until we rise against it in fiery indignation, fighting it
with all the energy of wounded love, and bringing upon it the
condemnation of concentrated and implacable anger. We are not
speaking of what are called great sins ; nor thinking of murder,
of commercial plunder, of adultery, drunkenness, or theft; we
are speaking of sin as sin, sin nestling secretly in the heart, sin
rolled under the tongue as a sweet morsel, sin indulged in secret
places, sin perverting the thought, sin poisoning the love, sin
sucking out the life-lilood of the soul ; thinking of sin, not of sins
— of the fact, not of the details ; we ask, with passionate yet
well-considered pointedness, Have we not been led to under-
estimate the guilt of sin ?
Out of a true knowledge of sin will come a true appreciation
of Jesus Christ as the Saviour. Apart from this, he will be a
strange teacher ; with it, he will be the Redeemer for whom our
hearts have unconsciously longed when they have felt the sore-
ness and agony of sin. We could sum up the Christian creed in
a sentence, yet that sentence contains more than all the libraries
in the world. The short but all-including creed, — the faith which
bears us up above all temptation and all controversy, the faith
in which we destroy the power of the world, and soar into the
brightness of eternal day, — is this : I believe in Jesus Christ, the
Son of God ! The heart hungers for him, our sin cries out for
his mercy, our sorrow yearns for his coming, and when he does
come he speaks just the word that the soul needs ; he under-
stands us ; he knows us altogether ; he can get down into the
low, dark pit into which sin has thrown us ; he draws us to his
Cross ; he hides our sins in his sacrifice ; he shows us how God
can be honoured, yet the sinner forgiven ; he destroys the devil,
and puts within us the Holy Ghost ; he so fills us with life that
death has no longer any terror with which to affright us. I
believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God ; his word is the best
witness of its own power ; it touches life at every point ; it is
most precious when most needed ; it goes into our business, and
Psalmlxxxv.6.] THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 293
lays down the golden rule ; it follows us in our wanderings, and
bids us return ; it is always pure, noble, unselfish, unworldly ;
it gives us a staff for the journey, a sword for the battle, a
shelter from the storm, and in the last darkening hour it gives
us the triumph of immortality. This is the witness of ten
thousand times ten thousand histories. We do not wonder at
worldly or dead-hearted men calling this declamation : to them
it is declamation ; to them, indeed, it is madness ; yet can we,
who have known what it is to have Christ coming to us through
all our sin, say of a truth that, when we are most mad, we are
TtxosX. wise, — the ecstasy of love is the reason of faith.
If we lay firmly hold of these two points — viz., the sinfulness
of sin, and the work of Jesus Christ — we shall come to know
what is meant by what we have ventured to call the glow of
piety. Only the liberated slave can know the joy of freedom —
only the recovered leper can appreciate fully the blessing of
health. Let an emancipated slave tell of the joys of liberty, and
the man who has never felt the grip of a shackle will at once
pronounce him a declaimer ; let a recovered leper say all he can
of the delights of health, and the man who has never known a
day's sickness will probably think him more or less of a fool.
It is so with our preaching, or with our true Christian living ;
it is not set in the common key of the world ^ it cannot be judged
by the rules of carnal criticism^ when it is praised as regular,
thoughtful, prudent, let us beware, lest under these flattering
names be hidden a deep, yet almost unconscious apostasy. By
these strong words we seek to point out as the only solid basis
of a genuine revival of religion the need of being distinct and
positive in our faith. Let us know what we believe. Let us be
able to say with sureness and thankfulness what is the Rock on
which we stand.
Do not say that this is clipping the wings of mental freedom ;
do not charge me with narrowness or sectarianism ; only be on
the Rock, and you shall have upward scope enough ; only be
sure about Jesus Christ as at once the Interpreter of sin, and the
Saviour of sinners, and you may fly far on the wings of fancy ;
you may bring gems from many a mine, and flowers from many
294 TH^ PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxxv. 6.
a garden. You may have your own way of saying things, you
may speculate, and suggest, and discuss, only never turn sin into
a flippant riddle, and never set up the Saviour as a mere conun-
drum in theology. Are we thoroughly at one on these two
points ? Do we know sin in its essential, unchangeable loath-
someness ? do we love Jesus Christ as the only, the Almighty, and
the ever-blessed Saviour ? Then, out of this should come an in-
tense fervour of piety. We should have strength here ; we should
come back to these points from all the wanderings of fancy,
and all the bewilderments of temptation ; we should hasten to
these doctrines when the anxieties of religious thought are heavy
upon us ; we should publish these doctrines in explanation and
defence of an enthusiasm which must appear as madness to those
who have not seen the unseen or felt the power of an endless life.
To have one strong point of faith is of more consequence than
to enjoy the most splendid speculations, which vanish like an
enchanted dream when touched by the realities of sorrow and
death. To the young and ardent let me particularly, and with
most anxious love, give a word of caution. There are not wanting
men who will tell you that it is of little or no consequence what
you believe. To the young mind this is very pleasant : it saves
trouble, it leaves conscience untouched, it looks like liberty. Let
me speak strongly yet soberly about this teaching. Having
examined it, seen its effects on many men, and watched its
general results, I am prepared to characterise it as a lie. I do
not hesitate to teach that faith is the very root of life. What a
man most deeply believes, that he most truly is. All earnest
life is but a working out of earnest conviction. No man can live
a deep, true, great life who lives upon the chances of the day,
without convictions, without purposes, without principles on
which he is prepared to risk the whole issue and destiny of his
life. You will, after all, leave much unsettled ; you will not
encroach one iota upon the liberty of any man ; you will still
hold your mind open to receive new impressions, new visions
of truth, new aspects of duty ; yet you will have no standing-
place, no home, no rest, until you can say with the love and
fire of your heart, I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
In the next place, having a distinct idea of what we truly
Psalm Ixxxv. 6.] THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 295
believe, we must have a public ministry which is faithful to the
spirit and demands of Jesus Christ. We would speak with great
caution upon this point, so far as personal methods of ministry
are concerned. Every man must preach in the way that to
him is best, most powerful, and most useful. What we wish
to say is, that all Christian ministers are called to be faithful to
Jesus Christ in seeking the salvation of men. In my view of
ministerial life, there is too much attention paid in the pulpit to
controversial subjects. We have a great positive work to do.
We have affirmative truths to teach. We have to cast out devils,
not by controversy, but by divinely-revealed and authoritative
truths. If we wish to take our part in the controversies of the
world, the press is at our service; in the pulpit let us preach the
kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and mightily plead with men
to repent and believe the gospel. There is scope enough for all
our powers. We shall have to acquaint ourselves deeply with
human nature ; we shall have to read the heart until we know
its devices, imaginations, and cunning deceits ; we shall have to
study the power of sin in the soul ; we shall have to suffer with
Jesus Christ; we shall have to inquire diligently into God's
righteousness, mercy, and love ; night and day we shall have to
study the mystery of Redemption, and in doing all these things
our every power will be absorbed and exhausted. If now and
again, specially for the benefit of young men, we may have
occasion to refer to controversies, let the reference be made with
the lofty earnestness of men who are intent upon the salvation
of those who hear us. We must not throw off the old wordS' —
Repentance, Faith, Salvation ; and the things that they signify
must be the very life-blood of our ministry. In any genuine
revival of interest in Christianity there must be a revived interest
in a preached gospel. The sanctuary will be thronged, and the
thronging listeners will be justly impatient of everything that
does not bear immediately and intensely upon the salvation of
men. We sometimes talk of adapting our preaching to the age
in which we live, of keeping it abreast with contemporary culture,
and addressing ourselves to the habits of men of taste. In all
this there may be truth enough barely to save it from the charge
of insanity. My deepening impression is that, however we may
modify our manner, the doctrine which is adapted to all ages,
296 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. iPsalmlxxxv.6.
to all tastes, to all circumstances, is that Jesus Christ came into
the world to save sinners. Then must we be made to feel that
the doctrines of the gospel are humbling doctrines ; that they
smite down our natural pride and self-trustfulness, that they kill
before they make alive ; that out of our utter impoverishment
and nothingness they bring all that is distinctive and enduring
in Christian manhood. Black will be the day, disastrous the
hour, in which the gospel is pared down to meet the notions of
any men. The gospel is less than nothing, if it be not the
grandest revelation of the heart of God to the heart of man ; and
being a revelation, it must of necessity be clothed with an
authority peculiarly emphatic and decisive. We believe the
gospel to be God's answer to human sin and human sorrow ; and
if any man ask where is its authority, we answer, " The blind do
see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame walk, the lepers are
cleansed, and the dead are raised to life." Christian living is
the best explanation of Christian believing ; Christianity is the
best explanation of Christianity; and more preaching is the best
answer to all opposition.
Whilst there should be full and bold proclamation of evan-
gelical doctrine in the pulpit, there should also be a system of
teaching proceeding more privately. We believe thoroughly
in sound, critical, extensive teaching. Some men have a pecu-
liar gift in Biblical teaching; and those men should be encour-
aged to pursue their laborious but most necessary vocation.
The preacher and teacher should be fellow-labourers. The
preacher should collect men into great companies, arrest their
attention by earnest and convincing statements of Christian truth,
and then pass them on, so to speak, to the critical and patient
teacher. Thus the man of God will become throughly furnished;
— having received deep instruction, he will be able to give a
reason for the faith and hope that are in him, and he will be
strong to resist the importunities of those who are driven about
by every wind of doctrine. We have had unjust and unreason-
able expectations respecting the ministry. We have looked for
all sorts of work from ministers ; they have been expected to be
eloquent preachers, popular lecturers, learned writers, accept-
able visitors, skilled controversialists, untiring evangelists, and
Psalm Ixxxv. 6.] THE REVIVAL OF RELIGION. 297
many other important and influential characters. This is the
covetousness that tends to poverty. Let a man be one thing,
and let him excel in it. I wish the Christian pulpit to be my
world ; in it I would work as a willing servant, and in it I would
die like a soldier sword in hand. Another brother is a teacher,
learned, critical, and patient with slow scholars ; another is
blessed with a high pastoral gift, by which he can make himself
as an angel of God in the family; another is a ready writer, who
can fascinate the eye of taste, or convince the stubborn-minded :
be it so ; it is right, it is best. When Christian truth and
Christian feeling revive amongst us, we shall be as the heart of
one man, each magnifying God in the other. We shall all be
wanted ; the trumpet, the flute, the organ, the stringed instru-
ment— the soldier, the physician, the teacher — the orator, the
scholar, the poet — the strong man, the gentle woman, the tender
child — all will be wanted ; and the only strife amongst us will
be who can do most and do it best for the Lamb that was slain !
We have heard of a great musical composer who was conduct-
ing a rehearsal by four thousand performers ; all manner of
instruments were being played, all parts of music were being-
sung. In one of the grand choruses which sounded through the
vast building like a wind from heaven, the keen-eared conductor
suddenly threw up his baton and exclaimed, " Flageolet ! " In
an instant the performance ceased. One of the flageolet players
had stopped ; something was wanting to the completeness of the
performance, and the conductor would not go on. It shall be
so in the Church. Jesus Christ is conducting his own music.
There is indeed a vast volume of resounding harmony rolling
upwards towards the anthems which fill the heavens ; yet if one
voice is missing he knows it ; if the voice of a little child has
ceased he notes the omission; he cannot be satisfied with the
mightiest billow which breaks in thunder around his throne, so
long as the tiniest wavelet falls elsewhere. Flageolet, where
is thy tribute ? Pealing trumpet, he awaits thy blast ; sweet
cymbals, he desires to hear your silvery chime ; mighty organ,
unite thy many voices in deepening the thunder of the Saviour's
praise ! And if there be one poor sinner who thinks his coarse
tones would be out of harmony with such music, let him know
29^ THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxxv. 6.
that Jesus Christ refines every tribute that is ofifered in love, and
harmonises the discords of our broken life in the music of his
own perfection.
There is one feature in our public Christian life which we
should like more fully brought out, and that is the bearing of
individual testimony on behalf of Jesus Christ. By no means let
us seek to supplant what is known as the regular ministry, but
rather supplement it ; and at all costs destroy the impression that
nobody has a good word to say for Christianity except its paid
teachers. Such an impression is, of course, at all times utterly
and most cruelly false ; yet there is a possibility of so enlarging
and strengthening our testimony as to secure the happiest results.
Why should not the banker, the great merchant, and the eminent
lawyer say publicly what God has done for their souls? If the
Prime Minister of England, if the Lord Chancellor, if the judge
upon the bench, if the well-known senators would openly testify
on behalf of Jesus Christ, they might produce the deepest
possible impression for good. Such testimony would destroy
the slanderous and blasphemous notion that Christianity is not
adapted to the strength, the culture, and the advancement of the
present day. It would arrest the attention of genius ; it would
infuse a new tone into the conversation of the highest circles; it
would supply novel material for newspaper comment. We shall
be told that this would be " sensationalism ;" but let us beware
lest the devil find in that alarming word one of his easiest
victories over Christian duty and Christian courage. Is it not
high time that there should be sensationalism ? Have we not
been troubled with indifference long enough ? Has not Jesus
Christ become a merely historical name in many quarters ?
Terrified by the impotent bugbear of sensationalism ; hushed
into criminal silence by the possible charge of sensationalism ;
frightened into holes and corners lest anybody should cry "Sen-
sationalism ; " living tamely, dastardly, shamefacedly, because
there is such a word as sensationalism ! Is this manly on our
part, or true, or just, or grateful ? If this be sensationalism, how
comes it to be so ? Is it not by contrast with long-continued
indifference, with cruel silence, with unholy self indulgence ?
Could we not soon put an end to the charge of sensationalism;
Psalm Ixxxv. 6.] THE REVIVAL OF RELIGIOISt. 299
by the strength, the constancy, the ardour of our consecration ?
Sensationalism is a momentary cry — we may silence it by life-
long continuance in well-doing.
Let those who have social, political, literary, and commercial
influence throw it boldly and earnestly into the cause of Jesus
Christ ; it is but common justice ; having received much they
owe much ; and as the time of payment is brief — alas, how brief!
a shadow, a hurrying wind — let them be prompt if they would be
just. Will you who are full of sin and sorrow throw yourselves
at the Saviour's Cross and cry mightily, " God be merciful to me
a sinner " ? Wait there until you receive the forgiveness of your
sins. Do not yield to any suggestions to go elsewhere. You
will know that you have received the answer when your hearts
are filled with a deep, joyful, unspeakable peace. Will you who
have long borne the Saviour's name carry the banner of your
profession more loftily, more steadily, and more humbly ? Will
you who preach the gospel give your nights and days to
deeper, tenderer communion with Jesus Christ, desiring of him
the all-including gift of the Holy Ghost ? Will you who are in
business live in the spirit of the golden rule ? Will you who are
heads of houses walk before your families in the fear and love of
God ? Are you forming the holy vow ? In your heart of hearts
are you renewing your covenant with the Saviour ? May the
word of the Lord prosper ; may we know that Christ is gathering
many spoils ; and realise that the Cross of the Saviour is still
able to draw men's hearts, and to hold them for ever by the
omnipotence of love.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, as we began the year in thy name and in thy strength, so
would we close it to thy praise. Thou hast done great things for us
whereof we are glad ; thou hast led us by a way that we knew not and
by paths we had not known. Thou hast been eyes to the blind, and feet
to the lame ; thou hast cared for us with all the tender care of love. Thou
hast not forsaken us even for a small moment; with everlasting mercies
hast thou surrounded us, and by their gentle ministry thou hast made us
strong. When we feared as we entered into the cloud we heard a voice
in the cloud speaking of Christ ; when we wondered what would occur thou
didst send thine angel to strengthen us and give us peace. We are now
enabled to trust the Lord with our whole heart ; we will take no more care
of our own life that we may save it : he that saveth his life shall lose it,
and he that loseth his life in the love of Christ shall find it. We desire to
have the gift of faith, so that we may believe all this holy testimony, and
conduct our life along these sacred lines. We would be quiet, resigned,
perfectly tranquil ; we would rest in the Lord and wait patiently for him,
and as for our heart's desire we know it shall be granted unto us. Thou
hast led us by ways that startled us, and thou hast brought us nigh
unto precipices by which we were affrighted, yet thou hast by thy good
hand upon us set us in thy house, given us the new song, and caused our
faces to be turned towards the gentle heaven. In our houses we have
seen the Lord, in the winter's fire and in the summer sunshine, both
coming from one great fount of heat and light. Thou hast laid bread upon
our table, common when we touched it, but sacramental when thou didst
break it and give it unto us ; we have not eaten unblessed bread, we have
not slept the sleep of those who fear or care not, ours has been the child's
rest of perfect trust in God. If there have been nights succeeding days
they have brought with them all their troop of stars ; when the days have
come they have opened like pages in a new book, written all over with
the finger of God. Now the year is dying, the year is all but dead, it will
vanish into the shadows, and we shall write its name no more. God be
merciful unto us sinners : wherein we have done wrong let the time past
suffice. Give us consciousness of thy love, such consciousness as will not
throw us into despair, but will lead us to the Cross where all sin may
be forgiven. If we have done anything in thy strength and in the interests
of thy kingdom, God be praised for the opportunity and the power ; if we
have been unkind one to the other let all bitterness and wrath, and anger
and clamour cease now. The Lord help us to love our enemies that we
may forgive them ; the Lojd give us confidence in himself, increase our
Psalm Ixxxviii.] FRA YER. 301
love towards the Cross, and rule us more completely by the ministry of
his Holy Spirit. Grant unto all men wisdom, direction, comfort in sorrow;
and show them where the fountain of life is, and withdraw many of us that
we may be refreshed by rest and by communion with God. Be round
about our life — a dwindling quantity upon the earth, but growing towards
immortality in the heavens. Help us to live the rest of our time here in
pureness and gentleness and usefulness, and may men take knowledge of
us that we have been with Jesus and have learned of him. Be round about
our houses and make them habitations of the just : go with us into the
market-place that we may keep a wise and understanding heart amid all the
temptations and distractions of this world ; and in the time of sorrow may
we show Christian submission, and in the hour of loss may we be enabled
to fall back upon the riches that are treasured in Christ Jesus. The Lord
hear his servants in these things, seeing that these supplications and
praises are poured out at the foot of the Cross ; and mercifully send the
suppliants answers of peace. Amen.
Psalm Ixxxviii.
1. O Lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee :
2. Let my prayer come before thee : incline thine ear unto my cry ;
3. For my soul is full of trc ubles : and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.
4. I am counted with them that go down into the pit : I am as a man that
hath no strength :
5. Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou
rememberest no more : and they are cut off from thy hand.
6. Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.
7. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy
waves. Selah.
8. Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me ; thou hast made
me an abomination unto them : I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.
9. Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction : Lord, I have called daily
upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.
10. Wilt thou show wonders to the dead ? shall the dead arise and praise
thee ? Selah,
il. Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave ? or thy faithfulness
in destruction ?
12. Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in
the land of forgetfulness ?
13. But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my
prayer prevent thee.
14. Lord, why castest thou off my soul ? why hidest thou thy face from me ?
15. I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up :• while I suffer thy
terrors I am distracted.
16. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.
17. They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me
about together.
18. Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance
into darkness.
302 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxxviii. 12.
THE LAND OF FORGETFULNESS.
" Shall thy wonders be known in the dark ? and thy righteousness in the
land of forgetfulness ? " (ver. 12).
THIS psalm is very mournful. The Psalmist is in great fear
and sorrow. He has been crying day and night before
God time out of mind. He is afraid that his prayer will never
get to heaven ; it will be lost somewhere in the darkness. By
day his soul is full of troubles, and his life draws nigh unto the
grave. He is a man who is marked for the pit. His strength
has utterly given way ; he is sure that he is going into the grave
to be numbered with those who are remembered no more. He
says that God has laid him in the lowest pit in darkness, in the
deeps. He says that God's wrath lies hard upon him. He tells
God that he has no more waves in all his great sea that he can
roll over the head that is bowed down in loss, and shame, and
grief. Then he begins to ask questions. He wonders what will
happen : — ** Wilt thou show wonders to the dead ? shall the dead
arise and praise thee ? Shall thj' lovingkindness be declared in
the grave ? or thy faithfulness in destruction ? Shall thy wonders
be known in the dark ? and thy righteousness in the land of
forgetfulness ? " This was a conception of the under-world. It
was all darkness, all night, all silence, all deprivation. There
was no immortality in the thought, no kind, blue, gentle heaven
bending over the imagination of the people who formed that
conception of the under-world ; and they themselves had not
dared even to fancy a heaven. There is a fabled river in ancient
mythology called Lethe, — simply meaning forgetfulness. The
idea of the fabulist was that whoever drank water out of that
river instantly forgot everything that had happened ; all the
past was a forgotten dream. Nay, more than this, consciousness
itself was not left after the Lethal water was taken. The man
who drank one draught of the water of Lethe, oblivion, was not
aware of his own existence ; that draught had utterly extinguished
him. Men have often longed for a draught of that water; men
have sighed for the land of forgetfulness ; souls, harps on which
music was meant to be played, have desired with unspeakable
parnestness to be allowed to die, to forget, to be forgotten.
Psalmlxxxviii.i2.] THE LAND OF FORGETFULNESS. 303
In some aspects the land of forgetfulness is a desirable land.
There are moments when we want to enter it and be enfran-
chised in it for ever. We could lie down with the dead, — not
with dead bodies only, that is nothing ; the flesh is not the man :
but there are moments of despair, spiritual chagrin, and self-
detestation, when we could wish to be utterly blotted out and to
be as if we had never been. We want to forget ; memory is a
tormenting friend ; we have tried many a draught and many
opiates if haply we might tempt the brain into final and ever-
lasting sleep. What are these images that fill the air ? What
are these voices that rend the air ? What are these touches that
make us alive all over with life that overflows : — keen, sensitive,
agonised life ? What is it that makes our life occasionally one
burning pain ? Surely God would not thus pursue and afflict
us and throw us down if he meant that we were to end our
existence in the grave. Is he not speaking to us that he may
awaken our better nature ? Is he not calling us to spiritual
consideration ? Is he not determined to torment us into good-
ness if he cannot lure us into the reverence that precedes loving
surrender of soul to his will ? How many men would gladly
enter the land of forgetfulness? Things done forty years ago
may not look at us with very vivid e3'es, but they stir. A
stirring frightens us more than a good straight defiant look would
do. There is a silence that is terrible; there is a motion that
means so much more than itself; it is suggestive that the
judgment is coming, the penalty is impending, the end is near.
There are things that other people have done to us that we long
to forget; if we could wholly forget them life would be sweeter,
friendship would be dearer, the outlook would be altogether
more invithig. What is it that makes the land of forgetfulness
a land in poetry, a land inaccessible ? Is there no potion that
the soul may take ? there are potions that the body may drink,
but we do not want to drink our bodies into some lower level
and some baser consciousness ; we are inquiring now about soul-
potions, drinks that affect the mind, draughts that lull the soul.
There are other aspects in vwhich the land of forgetfulness is
an attainable land. We can so live as to be forgotten. Men can
live backwards. Men can be dead whilst they are alive, and
\
304 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxxviii. 12.
forgotten while they are present to the very eyes. What is there
to remember about them ? Beginning as ciphers they have
continued as ciphers ; they have never done anything for the
world, or for any individual in the world. Where are the parts
of character on which we can lay hold and say, By these we shall
remember you evermore ? What miracles are possible to man !
He can so live as never to speak a word the world will care to
remember ; no sentence of his will ever be quoted ; no beauteous
sentiment ever escaped his lips ; never was there a picture upon
his face, never did morning gleam in his eyes, never did music
engage his voice. We can so live as to be forgotten at our own
fireside. There is nothing done that could be remembered. No
child ever said, He brought me a toy, he made me glad, he played
with me. No sorrowing heart can say. He was so gentle ; if
he did not pray aloud, his very breathing was praying ; when he
looked it was a benediction ; his very speech had music in it.
So when there is a funeral it is not a mere putting away of the
body, it is an obliteration of the whole identity. There is nothing
missed, there is no sense of loss, the air is not vacant ; the very
solitude has a grim hospitality of its own. How are we going to
live ? When we die are people to say. We have lost something ;
we have lost life, we have lost leadership, we have lost com-
panionship, we have lost the touch that made us strong, we have
lost the music that sanctified silence and made the house a church
all the week long : what is it that has gone ? Then will come
the loved name. Not the moment of weakness will be remembered
when you shrunk into insignificance, and were frail and humble
in your own sight, but some point of strength will be remembered
in that glowing life of yours, and that point of strength will be
the remembered picture, and it shall be spoken of, the quality of
your character, the generosity of your hand%-the largeness and
lovingness of your hearts, long as memory retains and discharges
her happy function. What is it that some men want to make
them more conscious of life and more conscious of responsibility ?
Why do not all men seek to do something as well as receive
something ? We ought not to be mere receptacles, we ought to
be fountains as well as reservoirs, always giving out some new
stream of sacred water, always oftering the world some larger and
purer benefaction. The world is made up to us of ones and twos.
Psalm Ixxxviii. 12.] THE LAND OF FORGETFUL NESS. 305
We know nothing about the millions. There are forty million
people say in the island; we do not know them, they are not even
moving figures before our eyes, for we can only see a few at a
time, and the most of the millions we shall never see at all. It is
this man, this woman, this child, this friend, this association, this
comparatively little sphere that makes our earth heaven. Why
not then be so good within it as to fill it with endeavour if not
with success? If you will make up your minds to be remembered
at home all the rest will take care of itself. There are some
remembered at home whom crushed hearts would gladly forget.
It is possible for you so to use your own child that that child will
come in its old age to hate your name, and to say. Let that name
never be mentioned in my hearing ! You can live so if you like.
Have faith in the man who is well-remembered at home. What
do his chief associates say about him ? Not, what do the news-
papers say about him, or strangers, or paid critics, or hireling
scribes, or indifferent observers; but what do they say about him
who eat bread with him, who know him all the day, who see
him in spring, in summer, in autumn, in winter, in health, in
disease, on the mountain-top and on the level : what is their
account of him ? Do they long for him, miss him, wish for him,
look out of the window and say, Oh that I could see him ! for
then would the house be glad ? That is the only fame really
worth living for ; that is a sacred reputation : let all the rest take
care of itself. We are thus narrowed down, focalised, so that
one other life makes all the millions tolerable, one point of
sympathy links us to the universe. Live richly, live tenderly,
live so that souls will yearn for you when your turn comes to
pass out of sight.
The land of forgetfulness is therefore in some aspects a
desirable land, in other aspects an attainable land, but thirdly,
it is in fact an impossible land. Effects follow causes : deeds
grow consequences. Whilst, however, there is a sense in which
a man may die and be forgotten, yet there is another sense in
which his evil lives after him, and creates for him new epitaphs
every day deepening in their malediction. The wine you drank,
in order to put the evil deed out of your mind will turn cold
within you, and losing its heat you will lose the obliviousness
VOL. XII. 20
3o6 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxxviii. 12.
which it momentarily gave you : so curious is nature in her
working that the very momentary obliviousness shall kindle
into larger, quicker vividness the very thing which you thought
you had lost in intoxication. The children are to live after you,
and you may be putting a most horrible stamp upon them, or
you may be putting upon them a most beautiful signal and
making them rich with sacred, tuneful, elevating memories, the
very mention of which shall lift them above all care and solici-
tude and give them a new hunger towards the heavens. Every
man is a minister, a preacher ; every man is numbered among
the clergy of God, revealing God, lifting up his own family
into better life, if so be he will obey his function, the call of God.
Looking at the matter from a Christian standpoint, we have
this gospel preached to us, namely, that evil can be forgotten.
The Lord said he would forget ; Omnipotence would find no
place in all its infinity for siri. Thy sins and thine iniquities
shall be remembered no more for ever : I will cast them behind
me. Where is that land — the land that lies behind infinity?
But sin cannot be forgotten until it is forgiven. If we confess
our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Do not
imagine that forgetfulness is an intellectual feat on the part of
God. Never suppose that for some psychological reason impene-
trable to our inquiry the Lord has contrived to forget that he
ever made a world. The Lord forgets nothing : but after a pro-
cess known to us by the sweet name "forgiveness" there comes
the state in the divine mind which is known by the human word
"forgotten." Sometimes we say we can forgive but never
forget. Then we cannot forgive ; and if we cannot forgive we
cannot pray ; if we cannot forgive we cannot believe. Forgive-
ness is the true orthodoxy. Largeness, sensitiveness, responsive-
ness of heart, slavery to love, that is orthodoxy. Consider this :
if we do not forgive one another, God will not forgive us, and if
God does not forgive us he cannot forget our sin, and if he cannot
forget our sin he must punish it: and when God punishes, what
imagination of man can conceive the quality, the extent, and the
duration of that penalty ? God never forgets man's humblest
service. There is no law by which that service can be blotted
>ut. God is not unrighteous to forget your work of faith and
Psalm Ixxxviii. 12.] THE LAND OF FORGETFULNESS. 307
labour of love. He remembers what the workers themselves
have forgotten ; he will tell them at the last what they have
done, and they will say, Lord, when ? when ? We have no
recollection of this having taken place. Then he will remind
them when it was all done. And he also remembers what is
not done : — Ye did not. . . . Ye came not. . . . Ye visited me not.
And then will come the question, When, Lord ? Oh, tell us when !
when? We never saw thee sick, or in prison, and did not
come unto thee ; we never saw thee an hungred or athirst and
did not minister unto thee : when. Lord, did all this occur ?
And he will say when. Neglected opportunities are aggravated
sins. You might have helped that man and did not ; that is set
down against you in Christ's book. The man asked you for
a cup of cold water, and you shut the door in his face : it is
written down in the books. Your own flesh and blood came
to you and asked for help, and you refused it : it is written
down. You have ministered to those who were destitute,
afflicted, tormented ; you have opened your doors and said,
Come in, and said it in such a gentle voice that the very saying
of it was itself a pledge of security : it is all written. No man
can give a cup of cold water to a disciple in Christ's name
without that cup of cold water being spoken of by the Lord him-
self; and if anybody should break one box of nard and pour it
upon the Lord's head, that shall be told in all the languages of
time and in all the nations of the earth, a perpetual, a fragrant
memorial.
Let us forget all unkindness, incivility, discourtesy. Let us for-
get our good deeds. That will be one great step towards the land
of heaven. There are some who remember every good deed they
ever did, and therefore they never did anything worth doing.
No man has ever done anything for God if he has kept account
of it. It may be difficult to teach this lesson, and to drive it
home ; but so long as a man can tell you when he gave pounds
and shillings, and when he rendered service, and to what incon-
venience he put himself, all that he did is blotted out. The
value of our greatest deeds is in their unconsciousness. The
rose does not say, I emitted so much fragrance yesterday and so
much the day before. The rose knows nothing about it ; it lives
3o8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm Ixxxviii. 12.
to make the air around it fragrant. Thus ought souls to live, not
Icnowing how long they have preached, how much they have
done, what the extent of their good deeds has been. They know
nothing about it ; they are absorbed in love ; they are borne
away by the divine inspiration, and whilst anything remains they
suppose that nothing has been given. Do not have a dramatic
land of forgetfulness, do not create some momentary oblivion, and
think that you have done everything because you have stored
your past within its dreary clouds. Be frank with yourselves :
write down" all your evil deeds and humble yourself to every
man you have wronged. If you have done any man wrong, the
humblest servant in your employment, go and tell him and beg
his pardon. If you have kept back one solitary penny of the
price pay it with interest and beg the pardon of the man you
have wronged. If you have spoken unkindly to your dearest
friend, spend the remainder of your hfe in speaking sweetly. If
you have been caught in anything that is of the nature of wrong,
betake yourselves to the Cross, the Saviour's Cross, the Cross
of sacrifice, the altar of pardon, and there talk out the matter
with the oiTended Lord. We say good-bye to thee, iSSg^so far
as Sabbath-days are concerned. We thought to have used thee
better ; thou didst come to us as a white spotless sheet of paper
from heaven, and we meant to write thee all over with bars of
music, vows of loyalty to Christ, with purposes and endeavours
such as the Cross itself would approve. Here and there we
find some good writing. There the Lord helped us in very
deed. But so much of the writing is poor ; there are so many
erasures and interhneations and marginal notes, we cannot
read it ; we do not want to read it, it hurts our eyes. That
paper is storied with falsehood, meanness, broken vows, and
many evil things. Lord, grant us another scroll — 1890 — let us
have it, and help this poor stumbling hand to do better. For
Christ's sake we ask thee for that scroll and for that better hand.
Amen.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, we bless thee that, though we are always dying, yet we
cannot die: thou hast given us immortality in our Lord Jesus Christ, and
though the flesh must fall into the grave, yet shall our spirits rise and praise
thee in other worlds, duration without end. This is our hope, and some-
times it is our agony, for are we not now in the wilderness ? are not the
enemies abunr'ant? do they not come upon us at unexpected times ? and is
not our immortality somewhile threatened by foes we cannot repel ? Some-
times we long to escape these narrow boundaries of time and these limita-
tions of sense, that we may enter into the complete liberty, the glorious
freedom, of the sinless kingdom. Give us patience, help us to wait as me.i
who would gladly go but are remHinir.g iiere to do the Lord's will. Save us
from all repining discontentment and bitterness of soul, give unto us the
deep rest of faith, the sweet and tender peace of assured acceptance with
God. In all things fill us with the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ : he is thy
Son, he is the living Vine; may we be in that living Vine as living branches,
bringing forth much fruit, so that thou mayest be satisfied. We bless thee
for all thy care : we cannot tell where it begins, we know not where it ends ;
we cannot lay a line upon the measure thereof, nor can we count its innu-
merable instances. Behold our life is a witness of thy care, and we daily
testify to the presence of thy Spirit in our life, working out for us ways we
could not have carved for ourselves and giving us solutions infinitely beyond
our own sagacity. Let thy word dwell in us richly ; a living word, a word
so deep, so high, so full of music and all hopeful voices, a word that is a
word of light, illuminating the darkness and making all things beautiful.
Sanctify to us our sorrows : may our tears be the showers that water the
roots of our joys; may we know that thou dost not willingly afflict the
children of men ; teach us the mission and the power of discipline ; may we
remember that we are the creatures, not the creators, of the universe, and,
being such, may we humbly bow and yield to thee the homage of loving
trust, knowing that thou doest all things well. Turn our hair white with
age, break down our backs with heavy burdens and lame us in every limb
we have; take the roof from above our heads and the bread from our tables
and the water out of the channel that flows by the house-side — but take not
thy Holy Spirit from us. The Lord bless the little children here and at
home : set a child in the midst of us to teach us the mystery of thy kingdom,
and rebuke us in all our greatness and pride and ability and cleverness —
teach us that our hope and our heaven are to be found in the meekness and
charity and nobleness and self-sacrifice of Jesus Christ, in whose great,
sweet Name we pray. Amen.
310 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xc.io.
Psalm xc. 10,
**The days of our years are threescore years and ten."
THE DAYS OP OUR YEARS.
ON hearing this statement some may wonder that so well-
known a fact should be used as a text. It is just because
it is so well known, and, indeed, so universally admitted, that
we wish to see what practical use can be made of it. So far as
the fact itself is concerned, there is no opposition or difficulty
amongst us. We receive the text with an assenting sigh. We
bow our heads in homage to the tyrant death, knowing that it
is useless to bruise our soft hands against his iron sceptre. In
childhood we laughed at him as a fiction, in manhood we forgot
him as a concealed ghost, in advancing age we accost him with
reluctant respect, and offer him the grudged hospitality of
mourning and sighing, with more or less of articulate distress
and lamentation. We know our span ; it is but a handbreadth,
and it shortens as we measure it. All this is freely and univer-
sally admitted; but we wish to ask what kind of conduct ought to
be based upon these solemn admissions. Let us grope, or find
our way, little by little, from that which is admitted to that
which is revealed, and which stands as a perpetual challenge of
our attention and a constant appeal to our confidence.
Let us first of all look at our life a little in detail. The days
of our years are threescore years and ten. There is more sound
than reality in that statement. We do not live seventy years,
though we die on our seventy-first anniversary. The figures are
illusory. Take from the seventy years some five years of more
or less irresponsible infancy, and the figure drops to sixty-five.
From sixty-five subtract one-third of itself as spent in sleep, and
the figure drops to some forty-three years, or a little more than
five hundred and sixteen little months. That is, assuming that
we live out the whole string of the seventy years. But let us
take the obviously too high average, of human life at fifty years •
make the same deductions, and we shall find the average of
human life reduced to some thirty years, or three hundred and
Psalm xc.io.] THE DAYS OF OUR YEARS. 511
sixty short, swiftly passing months. It is but a breath, and just
over it there glows a heaven and there burns a hell. Into that
matter we do not now enter. But it is plainly before us that we
have a certain portion of time to spend upon the earth, and we
cannot be sure that any one of us will ever spend it. The breath
we are now drawing may be our last; there is no guarantee of
health, there is no surety given to us that we shall always have a
clear intellect, a penetrating eye, a comprehensive mind. At any
moment man may be deprived of this : he is followed by packs
of wolves he cannot satisfy : on the right hand is an abyss, on
the left hand is also an abyss : many a time in the sky there are
lowering clouds— what is man to be and to do within this little
span of about three hundred and sixty months ?
We are told that wise men know exactly from time to time
where their money is ; they know what money they have, and
they know where to find it or how to account for it. We should
be as exact in measuring and accounting for our time as we are
in respect to our money. Let us try to get at the religious use
of time, and hold ourselves as the treasurers of the costliest jewel
that can be committed to the care of creatures. The days of our
years are threescore years and ten. Man cometh forth as a
flower and is cut down, he fleeth also as a shadow and continueth
not. See thien that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as
wise, redeeming the time — literally, buying up the opportunity,
buying up the chance — for the days are evil.
This course of reflection might easily become so misapplied
as to lead to most mischievous results ; we must, therefore,
presently wholly change the tone. A foolish man hearing this
might be led to measure everything by his own individual life,
and thus never attempt any work except that of the most narrow
and selfish kind. His dreary programme would read thus : " I
am to be here at the best for some six hundred months ; they are
flying and perishing whilst I count them. I will buy me a Bible
and retire to some mountain cave, and I will sit down and read
it again and again till the months be gone. I will commit it all
to memory; I will enter into no enterprises; I will venture
nothing ; I will have no high aspirations, no broad lines of work,
31^ THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xcio.
no purposes that reach farther than the sunset of the present day
— what is tlie use of it all ? I might be gone at any moment;
I will therefore spend my life in sighs, and the sooner the
end comes the better." This would not be religion ; it would be
insanity. We are not to base our service on the narrow period
of our individual existence : we are to remember that as the
universe is larger than any star that shines within it, so humanity
is larger than any of the personalities that people it, and we are
to base our conduct upon the broadest conceptions of human life
and human destiny.
Let me remind you that though life is short, yet it is immortal ;
both the statements are true, and are therefore reconcilable. The
leaves of every summer fall and die, but the great forests fatten
and strengthen, and wave in the winds of centuries. The king
dies, the kingdom gets younger every day that lives a true life
and sucks its juice from the heart of God. The preacher becomes
an old man, withers and dies, and his pulpit sees him no more,
but the ministry is immortal, the word of God abideth and is
proclaimed for ever. An individual man dies and can no more
be found than can the knell that dies upon his grave, yet humanity
continues — continues building its cities, its temples and towers,
weaving and spinning, carving and singing, going with a high
joy, as if no grave had ever been cut in the breast of the green
earth. We are not, therefore, to mope and moan about our own
little day ; we are not to lock ourselves up in the little prison of
the uncertainty of our own existence; we are not to sit down
and read the Bible till death tells us that it is time to go. We
have to take in all the world as if it were our business to look
after it ; we must be inspired by our immortality, not discour-
aged by our frailty. Young man, you take your start from either
of these two divergent points : you can make yourselves old men
in an hour by reckoning upon your fingers the number of months
you have to live, or you can start under the inspiration of your
immortality, and say the work that you leave uncompleted will
be carried on by others. You can lose your individuality in the
great light, as the stars drop away into invisibleness when the
firmament is ready to receive the infinite lustre of the one orb
that can fill it from bound to bound. It is, therefore, to challenge
Psalm xcio.] TBE DAYS OF OUR YEARS. 313
your immortality that I now address you : it is not to make you
go to the grave to weep there, but to go to your work, to live
in the endless, not to die in the limited and narrow sphere of
threescore years and ten.
was thus that Jesus lived. He died ere he had lived out
half his seventy j^ears, yet he never died at all. He said : " Pull
down what temple you like, that is good, and I will build it
again : you cannot pull down God's temples except that they may
be rebuilt and enlarged ; " and whilst the enemy had him, the
one on the left shoulder and the other on the right, and were
hurrying him away to kill him, he turned his head over his
shoulder, as it were, and said, " Lo, I am with you alway, even
unto the end of the world."
Some are in pain and distress by reason of thinking much upon
the brevity of life, they have been looking at one side only of
a very solemn subject. We ask you now to rise from your perusal
of the brevity of life, to ponder the fact that this life is but the
porch that opens upon immortality. Poetry hardly trifling with
history has sometimes touched us to the very blood upon this
point. The warrior dies, and says, " I am glad it is all over
so far as I am concerned : I wish I had never entered into the
war; I care not now what becomes of it."
" The war, that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering, swelled the gale,
And — Stanley ! was the cry ;
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye :
With dying hand above his head
He shook the fragment of a blade,
And shouted Victory 1 "
That is the man to lead armies, to inspire nations, to consolidate
churches — the man who does not say, " I care not whether it is
victory or defeat," but who in his last breath says "Victory."
Trust such men, and not those who write threnodies upon human
life as little, mean, narrow, and perishable, instead of being great,
noble, and immortal.
314 ' THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xc. lo.
The two men now being bound to that stake in Oxford are
tailed Ridley and Latimer. In five minutes the fire will leap
upon them and they will be killed. Quoth one to the other, jus*
as the fire was being lighted, "Brother, we shall light such a
candle in England to-day as shall never be put out." These were
not men who moped over their threescore years and ten, who
sighed themselves away into decorous oblivion, who lived little
narrow respectable lives nowhere, and finally went into nothing :
they were men who made England — who made heaven almost.
Their very names are inspirations, and must not, cannot, be
forgotten.
So Christ brought life and immortality to light. The Psalmist
wrote : " The days of our years are threescore years and ten ; "
Christ said : " I came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it : in
these threescore years and ten I will find enough for your
immortality." He says, " Sit down ; " he takes the years, breaks
them with his hand, and lo ! the seventy loaves spread out into
an infinity of banqueting, and in this poor little germ life of mine
he found the beginning and the spring of duration long continued
as God's own.
Let me remind you further that though life is short, yet it is
rich, and that is a consideration which invests life with responsi-
bility. We must do the more on that account. Everything is
made ready to our hands. There seems now to be nothing else
to be done in the way of invention or of general civilisation. We
are debtors to the past : we must consider how we can be the
creditors of the future. Our forefathers laboured : we have
entered into their labours — are we going to be content with them,
or are we going to see what can be done to prepare for a great
posterity ? We now say that money is not so valuable as it was
fifty years ago. If you tell your friends what your old father
lived upon half a century since, they will say, " That is all
very well, but a sovereign then went as far, perhaps, as two
sovereigns will go now, so it is no use your basing any economical
laws upon such precedents as these." There is sense in that
criticism. But what is true of money is exactly untrue of time.
Time fifty years ago and time to-day are not to be compared ;
Psalm xc. lo.] THE DAYS OF OUR YEARS. 315
they are to be contrasted. We can do fifty times the work that
could be done centuries ago in this very country. The library
stands ready for the scholar ; the steamship is awaiting the
traveller ; the earth is torn into mines and shafts for the scientific
explorer; the telescope is turned towards the heavens, and asks
for the exploring eye to use it. What chances are ours ! It
shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment
than for us, if we be faithless to our obligations. With telegraphs,
telephones, and instruments of all kinds, with inventions of
machinery the most subtle and wonderful, with all kinds of
time-saving contrivances, to tell us that our seventy years are no
longer than the seventy years of the Psalmist is to tell us what
our own consciousness contradicts, and our own experience denies
and repels. If he died at seventy, and we die at the same
nominal period of time, we have had the chance of living fifty lives
for his one.
What are you doing ? What use are you making of the great
facilities which are offered to you on every hand ? Are you as
slow as ever ? are you going to read about the threescore years
and ten as if they were figures that could be arithmetically
measured ? There is a moral measurement, there fs a scientific
measurement, there is a spiritual measurement, and it is to that
higher measurement that we now call ydu. I cannot allow myself
to say that I have only seventy years to live. It is true, arith-
metically, but broadly it is false. I have a thousand years to
live, and when the Psalmist and I meet at the great audit, and
he hands in what he has done with his seventy years, I must
require angels to help me to lift the burden of my conquests, if
I have been a good and faithful servant.
With all this wealth of life, inventions, machineries, libraries,
schools, opportunities of all kinds, with all these unreckonable
riches of civilisation, we are still conscious of a gnawing and
intolerable want. Civilisation has increased the pungency of that
necessity. If civilisation had done less we might have thought
it could have done more, and we might have been tempted to
wait for it. We might have said, " Give civilisation time, and
she will find the healing plant, she will bring up the golden store
3i6 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xc.io.
that will drive all poverty away, she will fetch the sage from
far-off lands that will solve every problem, illuminate every
mystery, unloosen every chain ; give her time, and she will
find the balm to lull my brain to rest and give me the freedom
that comes of profound and renewing sleep." Civilisation has
exhausted itself. There is nothing more possible to civilisation
except in the matter of degree. You cannot put your finger
down upon one thing and say, " Civilisation has not attempted
this yet." It may not have gone to the full length which it is
possible to overtake, but civilisation has refined our houses,
given us education, dispelled many prejudices, gathered around
us riches of all kinds: civilisation has put pictures upon our
walls, songs into our mouths, filled our houses with musical
instruments, made everything beautiful and rich, and yet we
have covered up a worm that dieth not with most charming
flowers, with most beautiful coverings of all imaginable kinds.
The one thing our civilisation has not touched in us is our sin.
We have seen pictures and have gone home to lay our head upon
thorns. We have heard music, an eloquent lie, and have fallen
down on bruised knees to utter a sobbing cry for pardon.
So Jesus Christ still keeps his place in civilisation. He begins
where others end. Where they cry from exhaustion he puts on
his strength. Where the mystery bewilders and blinds them,
he dispels it by many a shaft of light. He is the propitiation for
my sins, he stands between me and God, and O, mystery of love,
he stands between me and himself; for he too is Judge, and the
sentence of life and death is upon his lips. He knows my days
— ^^he comforts me with many a promise. He knows my sin — he
says he came to reply to its agony and to destroy its power. He
knows my weariness, and he promises me rest in his own great
heart, and let this be said about him — which can be said of no
other man — he met the world's want, in words if not in realities.
Say what we will about realities, this man mentioned the very
thing we need most. He says, " You want life ? " Yes, that is
true. "You want rest?" Yes, above all things we want rest.
"You feel hunger ? " Yes, a gnawing hunger. " You are
athirst ? " Yes, aflame, afire with thirst. " Then," saith he, *' I
have mentioned your necessities : I will address myself to their
Psalm xcio.] THE DAYS OF OUR YEARS. 317
direct and immediate and complete supply." As a poetical con-
ception, taking that limited view only, the Carpenter's Son stands
above kings and crowned ones of every name and suggests what
they had not ventured to dream.
The days of our years are threescore years and ten. We look
on one side and hardly think them worth living at all. We put
stones one upon the other and a wind blows them down. We
say, " I will go into this or that city, and abide there a year, and
buy and sell and get gain," and lo ! on the starting day we are too
ill to move. We are consumed before the moth, the insect is an
antagonist we cannot conquer ; we see the grave of our friend,
and written at the bottom of it is, "Yours will be dug to-morrow."
We feel how mean is life and how poor is the measure of our
time. Then it is that we want a man to come to us with revela-
tions of a higher kind, to speak to us of possibilities that do not
lie within the arithmetical compass of our seventy years.
My life — so frail that an insect can consume it, a lamp, flicker-
ing so that a breath might blow it out — that is my life in itself;
but hidden in Christ, hidden in God, hidden in the living Vine,
part of the fellowship divine, " I can the darkening universe defy
to quench my immortality, or shake my trust in God."
Psalm xcil.
(note on the ninety-second psalm.)
[Note. — A psalm of Sabbath musings. Not known whether it expresses
the religious feelings of Israel generally after the restoration, or whether it
owes its origin to any special event. The Talmud says that this psalm was
sung on the morning of the Sabbath, at the drink-offering which followed
the sacrifice of the first lamb (Num. xxviii. 9). It is a disputed question, even
in the Talmud, whether this psalm relates to the Sabbath or the creation, or
to the final Sabbath of the world's history, namely, the day that is altogether
Sabbath. Delitzsch thinks that the latter is relatively more correct. He says
only the Sabbath psalm repeats the most sacred name seven times.]
A MORNING MEDITATION.
"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises
unto thy name, O most High ! " (ver. l).
IT is a good thing to go out of oneself — to think high thoughts
— to feel how small we are in the midst of all the worlds, and
yet how great we are in the love and care of God. This is how
we can get rid of all that would thrust us down and make us feel
the weight and shame of sin, in such a way as to quench the light
of hope. Sweet Christ of God, I would think of thee in the hour
when day dawns, and have thee think of me whilst all the hours
call men to work and care, to stoop down to earth for bread,
and meet all the stress of life's hard fight. Dawn upon me, O
Light of the soul ; then I will sing to thee as one who has no
fear, but is rich in joy. Think of others also — of the sick and the
poor, the blind and those who have lost their way ; and if I can
help any poor soul this day, let me do it, for thy sake. — The
earth is very cold and sad and lonesome for many who dare not
tell all their grief
'To show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning" (ver. 2).
It begins the day well, and what is "well begun is half done."
The new day is as white paper, on which nothing is yet written.
Psalm xcii.] A MORNING MEDITATION. 319
It is a new chance. The morning is like a gate which opens
upon a fresh field, where we may find work and bread and health.
Ere the dew has gone up to the sun, I would send my best
thoughts of love to the throne of grace, the very spring and fount
of life, and thus get firm hold of the whole day, and rule it by
faith and hope. What then can harm me ? What foe can smite
me ? What evil voice can tempt me ? Will God in very deed
let me put my hand in his before I take one step into the rough,
cold world, where there is so much to chill the heart and throw
a dark cloud over the face of truth and purity and love ? If he
will, then I will lift my hand to his, and say, " Father, spurn not
thy poor weak child, but take hold of me, love me, guide me."
"Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe." Fill my heart with
morning light.
"... and thy faithfulness every night " (ver. 2).
Then we know what God has done. The tale of love is fully
told. Night is the judgment hour of the day. Here is a work to
be done, not in fits and starts, but steadily and regularly — "every
night." Nor is the work to be done secretly : we are to "show
forth " God's faithfulness, to make it known, to speak aloud
concerning it, and to glorify God in the presence of men. We
may speak a good deal about God without speaking much for him.
We are not only to talk of God's faithfulness to other people, but
to ourselves. He did this to me, is to be the definite and cordial
testimony of each believer. When the first star glitters in the
twilight we may begin the grateful testimony, and when all the
host burns in silent glory we may challenge every planet to share
with us the ^ holy duty of praising God. "Every night" — in
summer, when it is easy to sing; in winter, when the cold wind
might stifle music ; in spring, when we sow in faith ; and in
autumn, even when the fields are thinly grown. " Every night" :
in youth, and age, and in the last dread night when there is no
awaking for us on earth. Night has its own religion — solemn,
reflective, penitenial, grateful ; let us be faithful to the genius of
night, and be ever found at its sombre altar with a new and tender
testimony on behalf of God's faithfulness.
"Thou, Lord, hast made me glad through thy work" (ver. 4).
I look back upon all the way in which God has made me walk,
320 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm xcii.
and truly I must praise him for finding such a way for me.
I did not see the way. I did not choose it. At first I thought
it could not be God's way, the hills were so high, the rocks were
so large, the path was so rough, and there was so much to make
me afraid. Now I see much that God meant, and I am glad —
glad with great joy. All God's work that I can see is good — the
sky, the sea, the earth, all things great and small ; but his work
to me — to my own life and soul — seems best of all. The work
that lies before me this day is hard, and how to do it I know
not. This is as the day of death to me. Yet this very night I
shall come home with a new song in my mouth, and praise God
with a loud voice, neither ashamed nor afraid that men should
hear my giving of thanks. " Keep me this day without sin."
Let my feet be kept on the right road, and my eyes fixed on
the right end ; then shall I do good to many, and the work of
day shall be followed by sleep " like infants' slumbers, pure
and light."
" Thy thoughts are very deep " (ver. 5).
The Lord himself says : " My thoughts are not as your
thoughts; . . . for, as the heaven is high above the earth,
so are my thoughts than your thoughts." So the thoughts of
God are both "deep" and "high." Man calls them "deep;"
God calls them " high." If they are both deep and high, how
can we expect to see all their meaning without thinking long
and earnestly about them ? Nor is this all. We may have to
wait a long time before deep thoughts show just what is meant
by them. They do not spring up in a night and die at the going
down of the sun. The higher the star is, the longer is the light
in coming down to us. But what star is so high as the thought
of him who made it ? How good a thing it is to be able quietly
to wait ! The thoughts of God come up from eternity, and to
eternity they stretch ! It may be that not until I enter the world
of light shall I know all that God is doing to me and for me now.
Then he will tell me why the way was so long and hard ; why
I had to part with much I loved, with all my love ; why other
men were rich and I was poor ; why some seed never came to
blade, or ear, or full corn in the ear. His thoughts are very
deep, but his love is most tender ; in thought I cannot follow
Psalm xcii.] A MORNING MEDITATION 321
him, but his love shines and sings and comforts on every hand.
I will cling to the love where I cannot understand the thought.
"When the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers of
iniquity do flourish ; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever " (ver. 7).
The Psalmist did not know this until he went into the sanctuary.
What do we really know until we study in the holy place and
under the very light of heaven ? Nothing ! Nothing ! The
outside is full of deception, every colour is false, every attitude
is a lie, every rose conceals a thorn, every garden hides a tomb.
To be in sympathy with God is to be wise ; without that sympathy
we may be clever, shrewd, temporarily successful, but we put
money into bags with holes, and scatter our seed in stony places.
Even if this life were all, the impious man has not the best of it.
He has no high thoughts, no spiritual visions, no sense of a larger
identity; if these be dreams they are dreams that bless the
dreamer and inspire him to do other people good. Let the grass
typify the wicked ; let the stars typify the good and wise. I will
not fret myself because of evil doers ; they are living on their
capital, they are digging their own graves, they are slaying their
souls. Lord, help me to live on thy truth, to follow the light of
thy law, and to rejoice in the tranquillity of thine own peace.
Yet I must not despise the wicked, nor leave them to perish ; I
was once as they are. I will tell them what I know of God, and
who can say whether they will repent, believe, and live ?
VOL. XII. 21
PRAYER.
Almighty God, thou art our rest, and our peace is for evermore in thee.
There is no peace to the wicked, and there is no unrest unto them that put
their trust in the living God. Our heart's desire, our most vehement and
perpetual yearning, is towards thyself, thou only Complete One, who hast
immortality : out of thee all is ruin, without explanation, a growing and
bewildering perplexity, a riddle without an answer, and a dream filled with
terror — but in God all is centred and at rest. Thou movest all things, for
thou art behind them and above them and round about them. Thy throne
is on the circle of eternity, and all our little time is far below thy feet. Thou
dost make time our infirmity and our continual temptation ; it lives to die, it
throbs to expire, there is no immortality in its frail pulse ; but when we
remember the years of the Most High, an incalculable total, an immeasur-
able horizon, a store that hath no bound, then is our little time anchored in
thine eternity, and we feel in our hearts a deep rest, a quiet Sabbatic calm.
Save us from the temptations of time, deliver us from the snares of the
things that can be seen, the continual illusions, the things that tempt us, and
then reward us with scorn and mockery, and help us to lay up for ourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where
thieves cannot break through and steal. Teach us that he builds too low
who builds beneath theskyy save us from thinking that we can lay up years
as well as lay up much goods; teach us that we know not what a day may
bring forth — to-morrow may be our eternity, to-day may be our sharp and
sudden end. Thou art teaching us by circumstances around our lives and
very near them indeed, that life is held on uncertain terms, that our breath
is in our nostrils, that we die doing our duty, we fall suddenly in the great
waters, the fire doth seize us in the deep pit, so that we are alway living in
the shadow of death and by the margin of the grave. Help us, therefore,
considering all this, to know the years of the Most High, and to draw our
breath from God's eternity, so that there shall no longer be any death in us
• — it shall be a translation into the wide life, the ampler liberty, the new and
mother city, the grand Jerusalem. Thou dost shorten our life day by day,
yea, pulse by pulse dost thou rob us of our brief heritage of time. Thou
surely dost mean us to think much of this, for we know that this life cannot
be all, else whence these desires and instincts and hopes and dreams and
yearnings that rise into ardent passions that would assail the gates oi
the invisible city ? Behold, these things are thy testimony within us, yea, a
witness from heaven, that thou art the God of our souls and the Redeemer
of our lives. Help us therefore, to believe this, and to put our souls into thy
keeping, as into the hands of a merciful Creator. ^|!^We have come in the
PRAYER. 2>22>
name of Christ to give thee praise for all thy tender care, thy minuteness in
watching all the circumstances of our lives. Thou knowest our downsitting
and our uprising, our going out, and our coming in, there is not a word upon
our tongue, there is not a thought in our heart, but lo ! O Lord, thou
knowest it altogether. Thou dost watch each of us as if each were an only
child ; thou dost lavish thy store of love upon every poor life as though it
were thine only care; great and manifold are thy mercies, yea, tender is thy
loving-kindness, thy patience is long continued, and thy longsufTering seems
to be a root out of which doth grow thy joys. O wondrous Father, patient
F'ather, loving God, redeeming Christ, speak peace to us from the heavens,
and the earth shall no more remind us of death — it shall be the stepping-
stone of our higher life. Regard us as gathered from many quarters,
meeting for an hour in one centre, and that, our Father's house. May a
filial spirit pervade the assembly, may we be like children at home gathered
around the parental table, asking God our Father to give us the bread of life.
Remind us of our sin only that thou mayest remind us of thy greater mercy ;
point out to us all our guilt, black and deep, unpardonable by ourselves even
— then show us the Cross, the tree of life, where the Man is who is thy
fellow, equal with God, but habited like a dying slave, and whilst we look
upon his blood may it be unto us the blood of sacrifice and propitiation
and atonement — no common blood, shed by murderous hands, but freely
given from the fount of the heart to redeem the world and cleanse the sin
of man. We are stained through and through — we are evil in our action and
in our thought, and there is not a motive that rules our heart that dare show
itself in the sunlight. God be merciful unto us sinners, and'wash us in the
all-holy and all-cleansing blood. Help us to think soberly and justly about
life, about the present and the future, here and hereafter, this side and that
the grave : let a spirit of joy sing in us every day, and as we are no longer
slaves but free men, redeemed not with corruptible things as silver and gold,
but with the precious blood of Christ, may we therefore rejoice in God our
salvation and be glad with great rapture. Thou wilt not forget our dear
ones who are sick, — the old man, panting for the youthfulness of heaven; the
young maiden to whom life is denied, who goes up like the morning dew
at the bidding of the sun; the impenitent and hard-hearted, on whom all
prayers are lost, as the rains are lost on the burning sand; the prodigal on
the sea, or in the far-away place, or hidden from the social eye — God be
merciful unto all, for whom we ought thus to pray — let thy Gospel be heard
by them to-day, may they arise because the Master calls. Lord, hear us ;
sanctify to us our sorrows, many and keen ; let the bitterness itself be tlie
beginning of sweetness in our life, mocked and disappointed and wounded
where we ought to have had the most and best and purest love. May we
look away from the broken columns that mark the graves of blighted hopes,
away to the eveilasting hills of light and the city all beautiful with gold, fine
and never to be dim. Good Lord, we bless thee amidst it all : even our tears
help us, even our sorrows enrich the life which they make gloomy often-
times, and our joys are poor and mean that do not come out of the deep
rootage of much grief and sorrow, like unto his who was acquainted with
grief. Amen.
324 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm civ. 24-28.
Psalm civ. 24-28.
" O Lord, how manifold are thy works ! in wisdom hast thou made them
all : the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein
are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the
ships : there is that leviathan, whom thou hast made to play therein. These
wait all upon thee; that thou mayest give them their meat in due season.
That thou givest them they gather : thou openest thine hand, they are filled
with good."
VOICES OP CREATION.
THIS is a great intellect in a contemplative mood. The
appreciation of nature is the work of intellect ; hence, in
proportion as the human mind is cultivated, is nature found to
be teeming with instruction and sources of enjoyment. Never,
perhaps, was nature more graphically described than in the
psalm before us. Facts are here turned into poetry. Divine
power is celebrated in strains the most elevated and inspiring,
while the exquisite adaptations of nature are indicated with the
minuteness and delicacy of the most analytic observation.
The opening reference presents a stroke of true sublimity :
the Psalmist describes light as the garment of Deity. He speaks
of the heavens being stretched out as a curtain — of God making
the clouds his chariot and walking upon the wings of the wind ;
— he lays bare the foundations of the earth, and sounds the
depths of the great waters — looking down the sides of the moun-
tains, he notes the springs gushing in music and beauty — he
marks the wild ass quenching its thirst, and hears the fowls
of heaven singing among the branches — he observes the sap
circling in the trees of the Lord, and is impressed with the
majesty of the noble cedars that adorn the crest of Lebanon ; —
he notes the bird building its nest, the wild goat bounding over
the rugged hills, and the feeble coney finding its lodgment in the
rock. Having taken this survey, he turns his gaze towards the
heavens, and watches the moon as she keeps her seasons, and
bursts into rapture as the glory of the setting sun sheds its beams
upon his vision — and, again reverting to earth, he hears the roar
of the lion as he shakes the forest in searching for his prey — ■
next he beholds the great deep with its gallant navy, and the
Psalm civ. 24-28.] VOICES OF CREATION. 325
dread leviathan ! We cannot wonder, therefore, that the amaze-
ment and gratitude of the Psahnist should break into the exclama-
tion, " O Lord, how manifold are thy works 1 in wisdom hast
thou made them all."
This world is not unfavourable to moral culture. It has been
described as a "vale of tears," and as a "waste ho\/ling wilder-
ness," and, to some extent, the description is accurate. We
must ever remember, however, that our consciousness of guilt
has perverted our vision and our taste, and that in proportion
as we become godlike, will fresh beauties strike our eye, and
new charms challenge our admiration. The Psalmist is holy
on a planet which has been cursed, and even through the
darkness of the divine frown can see gleamings and blazings of
true glory.
All agencies are under the control of an Infinite Intelligence.
Speaking of the waters that stood above the mountains, the
Psalmist declares, " At thy rebuke they fled ; at the voice of thy
thunder they hasted away." In this he asserts the great principle
that all forces are under the management of divine wisdom and
paternal love. We have the assurance, therefore, that our Father
knows every tempest that sweeps through the air — notes every
dew-drop that quivers on the opening flower — and is acquainted
with every breeze that stirs the atmosphere. Conscious of this,
we may accept without hesitation the exceeding great and
precious promise : " He shall cover thee with his feathers, and
under his wings shalt thou trust : his truth shall be thy shield
and buckler. Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night ;
nor for the arrow that flieth by day ; nor for the pestilence that
walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at
noonday." You will observe that God speaks of these with the
familiarity of one to whose will they immediately bow.
The divine resources are equal to every exigency. The neces-
sities of nature are endless. In all parts of the universe there
are mouths opened, eyes upturned, and hands outstretched.
Mouths, eyes, and hands are directed to a central Being, and
what is his reply to this million-tongued appeal? Is there
hurry or confusion in his palace? Is he surprised by some
326 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm civ. 24-28.
unexpected exigency ? Does he ask the suppliant throngs to
pause until the excitement of their appeal has subsided ? Nay !
Hear the explanation of the Psalmist: "Thou openest thine
hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing"! Mark
the sublime ease which is here indicated. Could that ease have
been more significantly expressed ? Compare it with the anxiety
and fretfulness of man when besieged with numerous appeals !
How soon are his resources exhausted ! How early does he
cry for relief and rest ! Yet as the universe takes its seat, so
to speak, at the table of the Lord, the divine Benefactor simply
opens his hand, and the universe is satisfied I
The divine existence is to constitute the central fact in all our
contemplations of the universe. The Psalmist is not content
with looking at nature: in the highest sense he "looks through
nature up to nature's God ; " — hence he opens the psalm with the
cry, " Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, thou art
very great ; thou art clothed with honour and majesty." Having
taken a survey of nature, he exclaims, " O Lord, how manifold
are thy works ! " And, having completed his inspection, he again
turns upon his soul, and invokes it to praise the Lord. You
hence perceive that God was the central fact in the Psalmist's
contemplations. He never passed into a region whence he was
unable to behold the Maker of all ! When he looked at light he
saw it as the robe of God — when he watched the refreshing
shower he exclaimed, " he watereth the hills from his chambers"
— from the fir-trees as the house of the stork, and the rocks as
the dwelling of the coney, the Psalmist beholds the palace of the
Eternal I
This fact serves three purposes : — (i) It disproves the specula-
tions of pantheism. Pantheism teaches the identity of God and
nature ; but in this psalm we have more than fifty references,
by noun or pronoun, to the existence and attributes of a personal
agent ! Behind all and over all the Psalmist describes a personal
power as presiding ; — he sees, as it were, the mysterious hand that
has lighted the countless orbs which shine in the diadem of night ;
and amid the calm regularity of the universe he hears the sound
of the divine "going." The Psalmist, therefore, distinctly teaches
Psalm civ. 24-28.J VOICES OF CREATION. 327
the existence of a Being who is infinitely above the powers and
glories of nature, and for whose pleasure they are, and were
created.
(2) It undermines the materialistic theory. This theory teaches
the non-existence of mind. What we call mind, it denomin-
ates a refinement of matter. The entire psalm, however, pro-
claims and celebrates the presence of Infinite Mind. It sings the
honour of a Being who ponders the wants of his creatures, and
who has delicately balanced the adaptations of nature and moral
existences. Not only so, but every note that breaks from the
Psalmist's inspired tongue proclaims the presence and the
capabilities of mind. Regarding the psalm, therefore, as authori-
tative on the question, the materialistic theory is reduced to an
absurdity.
(3) It invests the universe with a mystic sanctity. Every-
where we behold the divine handiwork. As the architect
embodies his genius in the stupendous temple or noble mansion,
so, as we have repeatedly affirmed, has God materialised his
wisdom and power in the physical creation. You hold certain
possessions dear on account of the mind which they represent, or
the hands which they memorialise, and shall not the child of God
appreciate the wonders of creative power, as he realises the fact
that they testify to his Father's wisdom and love ? to the Christian
the wind becomes sacred, as he remembers that it is written,
" he walketh upon the wings of the wind."
We see, then, in what mood the Psalmist conducted his
contemplations of nature. Creation was to his spirit the very
gate of heaven. He found an altar everywhere. The world
was transformed into a "solemn temple." He did not walk
through the world-museum as a mere utilitarian, though in
nature's sublimest poetry he found the highest moral usefulness.
Let us always survey creation with the eye of a Christian :
surveying it with such an eye, we shall never fail to realise the
most exquisite enjoyment — on every hand beauty will appeal to
the eye, and in every season music will present her offering
to the ear. Lonehness will thus become an impossibility. The
mysterious ladder, connecting earth with heayen, will ever be
visible. While the ascetic and the misanthrope are breathing
328 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm civ. 24-28.
dolorous strains, we shall be uttering doxologies of thankfulness
— while the cheerless mourner is describinf earth as a barren
desert, and a vale of tears, we shall be gratefully exclaiming,
"These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty, thine this universal frame,
How wond'rous fair : thyself how wond'rous then!*
The principle of dependence is everywhere developed in the
universe. This assertion is abundantly sustained by such ex-
pressions as : " These wait all upon thee ; that thou mayest give
them their meat in due season." " That thou givest them they
gather." " Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled : thou takest
away their breath, they die, and return to their dust." "Thou
sendest forth thy Spirit they are created : and thou renewest the
face of the earth." It is thus shown that every natural pheno-
menon is traceable, directly or indirectly, to the divine purpose
or government. The varied natural changes are attributed to
the Spirit of the Lord : when the flowers grace the earth, the
Psalmist exclaims, " Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are
created ; " and when generations are consigned to the tomb he
adds, " Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to
their dust." The Psalmist, therefore, ignores the presence of
"chance," or "accident;" in his view God is enthroned, and
the divine dominion is over all 1
We infer, then, —
First : The existence of an absolutely self-dependent power.
Finite conception is totally unequal to the comprehension of such
an existence. We have sung
"Thou art the ever-living God,
Were all the nations dead;"
but how inadequate have been our realisations of the fact I The
brain reels as we contemplate the extinction of every star — the
dissolution of every system — the annihilation of every life — the
total ruin of the universe, and yet the divine power remaining
unimpaired, and the divine glory blazing as dazzlingly as when
it fell on the stupendous organisation of nature, and the count-
less legions of happy spirits ! Our want of comprehension,
however, does not affect the sublime doctrine of God's infinite
Psalm civ. 24-28.] VOICES OF CREATION. 329
independence. We must sing of him to-day as when '* heaven
rung with jubilee, and loud hosannas filled the eternal regions : "
" Thee, Father, first they sung, Omnipotent,
Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,
Eternal King ; thee. Author of all being,
Fountain of light, thyself invisible
Amidst the glorious brightness, where thou sitt'st
Throned inaccessible, but when thou shadest
The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud
Drawn round about thee, like a radiant shrine,
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,
Yet dazzle heaven, that brightest seraphim
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes."
Second : The special mission of each part of the universe. —
The Psalmist in his wide excursion and minute observation
detects nothing that is wanting in purpose. Man alone is failing
in the exercise of his true function. All nature proclaims his
shame, not by direct reference, but by self-consistency. From
the grass-blade to the vastest planet that shines in the firma-
ment there is harmony with the divine will ; but in man there is
impurity ; in his arm rebellion rules 1 The sun never fails to
pour splendour on the worlds which claim him as a centre ; but
man who is the glory of this lower scene has quenched his light,
and now lurks in darkness, because his deeds are evil I
Third : The profound humility by which every intelligence
should be characterised. Seeing that we are dependent on God
for " life and breath, and all things," it becometh us to dwell in
the dust of humility. There is one question which may well
smite human pride, and bring human consciousness to an
estimate of man's actual position, viz. : " What hast thou that
thou hast not received ? " Men of genius ! Ye who boast of
your power to rule the mind of multitudes, or betake yourselves
into lofty regions, where you can be free from the intrusions of
vulgarity ; what have you that ye have not received ? Your
genius never sheds a single ray which is not borrowed from the
Infinite Light, nor could it ever exalt you into those sacred realms
of enjoyment, except by the power of the Infinite Arm ! Men of
money 1 What have you that ye have not received ? Remember,
that the silver and the gold are God's, and the cattle upon a
thousand hills : the tact, the energy, the forethought, to which
^io THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm civ. 24-28.
you attribute your success, are as truly a divine creation, as is
the sun in whose light you conducted your toils. " Every good
gift and every perfect gift cometh down from the Father of
lights." It little becomes us, therefore, to assume the airs of
arrogancy, or to use the rod of despotism. We are all depen-
dent ! Our breath is in our nostrils. The divine will determines
the measure of our days ; let us, therefore, in genuine humility,
conduct the business of life, and prove our Christian discipleship,
by reflecting his beauty who was meek and lowly in heart.
Our rejoicing is this that we depend on One who cannot fail ; on
One who has only to open his hand, in order that his creatures
may be filled with good : we need entertain no alarm as to the
resources which are under God's control ; for when the abun-
dance of the physical universe is exhausted, we have yet in
reserve, the unsearchable riches of Christ.
A devout contemplation of the universe is calculated to increase
man's hatred of sin. This is strikingly evident from the con-
cluding language of the Psalmist. Having beheld the symmetry,
the adaptation, and the unity of the divine works, he directs his
gaze to the moral world, and, beholding its hideous deformity
and loathsomeness, he exclaims, " Let the sinners be consumed
out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more ; " as though he
had said, " There is one foul blot on this glorious picture ; one
discordant note in this enrapturing anthem. Let this spot be
removed and the picture will be perfect ; bring this note into
harmony, and the melody will be soul-enthralling ! " Have not
kindred feelings agitated our own breasts as we have gazed on
the landscape, or listened to the "melody of nature's choir," or
praisefully watched the rising sun, " as a bridegroom coming out
of his chamber, and rejoicing as a strong man to run a race " ?
Has not a verdict on our species escaped our lips as we have
mused on nature's magnificence, and that verdict assumed the
well-known form — " only man is vile " ? If so, we can sympa-
thise with the Psalmist as he longs for the utter extinction of
iniquity. When we cry out : '* Let the sinners be consumed out
of the earth, and let the wicked be no more," in what sense do
we pray for their annihilation ? Certainly not as commanding
fire from heaven to consume those who obey not the Gospel ;
Psaim CIV. 24-28.] VOICES OF CREATION. 33!
nor as praying that God would " stir up all his wrath," and con-
sign his foes to eternal ruin. God and Christ, reason and mercy,
alike forbid ! We would consume the sinner by consuming his
wickedness. We would terminate the generation of evil-doers
by expelling iniquity from the moral creation. But can this be
done ? Is not the extinction of evil a Utopian dream ? Nay !
Blessed be God, "there is a fountain opened in the house of
David for sin and uncleanness; " and again, "the blood of Jesus
Christ cleanseth from all sin " ! Christ came to consume the
sinner by taking away the sin of the world ; and all who exercise
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, having truly repented of sin,
become children of light, and heirs of everlasting riches, being
brought into harmony with the nature of God.
We conclude with a few words of a directly practical nature : —
First : God must be the central fact in our being. As he is
everywhere influentially visible in creation, so should he be
manifest in our daily demeanour. While engaged in the tran-
sitory affairs of earth, we should walk as those who " have no
continuing city, but seek one to come ; " and amid the restless-
ness of sublunary irritation, we should be fixed on the immov-
able Rock; the Rock Christ Jesus. "Ye cannot serve God and
Mammon ; " this declaration we have on the highest authority.
Let us, therefore, not squander our time in attempting the experi-
ment, but accept the assurance as an infallible certainty. Let
us take this as a fundamental principle, and if it produce its true
effect, we shall love the Lord our God, with all our heart, and
mind, and strength.
Second : What is the highest relationship we sustain to the
Creator ? We must, as we have seen, sustain one relationship
to God, viz., that of dependant. No spirit, however self-sufficient,
can find a region in which he can truthfully affirm " I have no
need of God!" But is this the highest relationship which any
of us sustain ? God forbid ! The worm beneath our feet, if
gifted with utterance, would say, " I, too, am a dependant."
Has it, then, come to this, that man — created in the image and
likeness of God, is reduced to the level of the reptile ? Are we
content to be the mere " pensioners on the bounty of an hour" ?
332 THE .PEOPLE' S BIBLE. [Psalm civ. 24-28.
We are called to a higher standing : to be the sons and daughters
of the Lord Almighty. This lofty privilege we may achieve
through the infinite merits of the Saviour's sacrifice, for " the
Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost."
Third : This beneficent Creator also reveals himself as man's
Saviour. God, through Christ, created the worlds, and through
him also he renews the moral creation. We, therefore, worship
God in Christ. It is not to the Creator, as such, that the peni-
tent draws near in quest of pardon — it is to God as presented in
the character and sacrifice of Christ that he directs his application.
We revere the God of Nature ; may we accept him as the God of
our Salvation : we tremble at the power of the Creator ; may we
repent while beholding the tenderness of Christ. Reverence for
the Creator will never save us, for there is no name given among
men whereby we can be saved but that of Christ Jesus.
Fourth : The extinction of sin should be the good man's
supreme object. 'He who converts a sinner from the error of his
way, saves a soul from death, and hides a multitude of sins.
They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars in
the firmament, for ever and ever. It is not for us to make light
of sin. We are to regard it as God regards it, and of him it is
declared that he cannot behold sin with the least degree of
allowance. Let us, by divine grace, aid in the extinction of
iniquity. The cry for our help is loud and urgent — it rises not
only from distant shores, but from the heart of our own country,
and every Christian can have no difficulty in interpreting its
message into the oft-repeated language — " Come up to the help
of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty."
PRAYER.
Almighty God, we cannot tell how many are thy mercies ; they are con-
tinual, they are more than the sands upon the sea-shore, and the stars are
not so many in multitude as are the compassions of the Lord towards the
children of men. Thou dost love us : thou didst so love the world as to give
thine only begotten Son to save it. Herein is love, not that we loved God,
but that God loved us ; and while we were yet enemies his Son died for us.
We cannot understand this: it blinds our reason with an infinite light; we
see not why it should have been : we can understand thine anger better
than we can comprehend thy love, for we know that we have incurred the
one and have not deserved the other. We forget God ; we do not retain
God in our thoughts : thou art the trouble of our life if not its supreme joy,
thou art our hell if not our heaven. Thou knowest the world in which we
are placed : behold, thou hast set us herein to dress it and to keep it, and
we are idle men. No hireling ever misspent his hours as we have wasted
the time thou hast given unto us. We have considered ourselves, we have
consulted oracles that would flatter us, we have sought out the lie that
would please us most for the passing moment, and we have listened to that
lie rather than to the gospel of thy judgment and thy love. It well becometh
us, therefore, to shut our eyes in shame, to run away into the darkness of
the night, to put our hand upon our mouth and to say, each for himself,
"God be merciful unto me a sinner." This we now say: every heart says
it, every soul utters the penitential cry — surely thou wilt answer us as with
trumpets and mighty voices from heaven, and the angels shall cry unto us
that our iniquity is pardoned. We love the Saviour, though we often forget
him : deep down in our hearts is a very tender love for his Cross. We can
say to him, " Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that we love
thee." Our sins are not greater than our love : our guilt is black, but our
love is greater than our guilt. O wondrous mystery of the heart, yet so
true. Lord, answer us, not according to the measure of our guilt, but accord-
ing to the desire and yearning of our life. Amen.
Psalm cvi. 12-14.
"Then believed they his words; they sang his praise. They soon forgat
his works ; they waited not for his counsel : but lusted exceedingly in the
wilderness, and tempted God in the desert."
SPIRITUAL DECLENSION.
WE have in these three h'nes some of the greatest words in
human history, and some of the most vivid experiences
of human life. We seem to need no one to expound these words
334 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cvi, 12-14.
to us — they are written upon our memory, and they are inwrought,
so to speak, into the very substance of our consciousness. We
do not need to go back a thousand years and more to find out
whether these things are historically true. Every man who
knows himself accepts them every one. We have all believed,
praised, forgotten, and tempted. What is now our duty ? If
that question can be answered directly and solemnly and with
due effect in the life, this will be as a birthtime, memorable
through all the ages that are yet to dawn upon our life.
"Then believed they his words." This takes us back to a
point of time. When did they believe his words ? He rebuked
the Red Sea, and it was dried up : so he led them through the
depths as through a wilderness and he saved them from the hand
of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the
enemy. And the waters covered their enemies ; there was not
one of them left. And when they saw the dead Egyptians lying
around them, all gone, from the oldest to the youngest, they
believed God's words. Any credit due to them ? Not one whit.
" Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."
This brings us into the region of personal providential deliver-
ances, and we have all been in that hallowed region. That such
deliverances do occur every man who has read his life with any
attention, will instantly attest. Our whole life is a providential
deliverance. So blind are we, so foolish, that we expect only to
see God in the miracle that is occasional, rather than in the
miracle that is constant. Let me lure you, or if need be, scourge
you, from the foolish idea that a miracle is something occasional
and exceptional. There are indeed critical moments when the
flash is brightest, when the voice is clearest and most resonant,
but if we could read our life aright we should find that to be
saved from disaster, to have evil prevented, as well as cured, is
to live under the miraculous providence of an Almighty Father.
We should say, were the great sun to crack, and fall in hemi-
spheres upon creation, that if it could be put together again it
would be a miracle. It is a grander miracle to keep it where it
is, as it is, from age to age, always giving, never losing, always
illuminating, never a beam the poorer for the infinite affluence.
Psalm cvi. 12-14.] SPIRITUAL DECLENSION. 335
See this aspect of your life and you will never have far to go for
the miraculous and the sublime.
Still I challenge your attention to occasional interpositions of
a very remarkable kind. You remember when the child was
sick : in your silent forebodings you had buried the dear little
life : you had never spoken about it. But contrary to all expecta-
tion and forecast, the life was redeemed from the grave, and set
back in its place in the house. You remember that wolf with
the loi g gleaming teeth that was pursuing you, and you were
just about to lie down and pant out your last breath, and some-
how the wolf was diverted from the pursuit, and you saw the
enemy, savage and terrible, no more. You remember when you
were within three paces of bankruptcy, and that a friend suddenly
started up in your course and brought with him the key that
opened the house of your prison. You remember just toppling
over the precipice, just going, and you were saved, rather by
a hand of wind than by a hand of flesh — something between a
thought and a thing — undefinable, inexpressible — but you were
brought back and set on solid ground. What was the result ?
Religious faith. For the moment you were a religious man. If
in that moment any one had suggested to you that there was no
God, all the forces of your blood would have risen against him
in antagonism and passionate protest. You would have said,
"Tell that to the idle winds, preach that wicked gospel to the
beasts of the forest, to the waves of the sea, but to me you must
make another declaration, for I myself have seen with these eyes
angels and ministers of light and redeemers — yea, I have seen
God."
Would that we had died in some of these raptures of faith.
We have had days in life when it had been well for us if God had
opened a door in his blue heavens and taken us to himself To
die with this triumphant faith and with this great grace overflow-
ing the heart would surely be to go to heaven. But what drops
there are in life, what descents from high mountain scenes and
breezes, into imprisonments and poisonous atmospheres, and
graves out of which it seems to be impossible that any trumpet
can awaken us, so deep, so black.
J36 2HE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cvi. 12-14.
But as in the text, so in our own experience, we have gone
beyond mere faith, solid and solemn faith. We read in the text
that they sang his praise. Music is the higher speech. There
are times in our joy when we must sing — shout, rave, the world
calls it ; there are times in our religious consciousness when the
only words that seem to fitly express our swelling emotion are
such as " Hallelujah — praise the Lord : Hallelujah — praise the
Lord." Ecstasy and folly supreme to those who are not in the
same mood, but, to men of kindred experience, music, a challenge
to the fellowship of worship, and a call as of a trumpet blast to
confess and honour the All-giving and Ever-giving God.
Once, O wanderer, you sang a religious hymn : do not drop
your head now, and seem to forget all about it. You perhaps
once sang in church, maybe you have come back to take up the
strain where you dropped it, and to confess yourself a fool for
your silence, seeing that God's goodness has never ceased to
attend your life. You have never told your friends of to-day
that once you were a religious man. We beg you to return, to
take up the ancient hymn, and to sing God's praise once more,
after ten or twenty years' silence. Will you ? Your throat may
be rusty for awhile ; the voice will not yield very round and
pleasant notes at first, but be steadfast, and the sweetness of the
music will increase as you persevere.
Now the tone changes, the wind goes round to a bitter quarter
— " They soon forgat his works." Literally, they hastened to
forget, they made speed to cleanse their memory of every religious
recollection, they took down the broom and swept the house of
their memory, so that no relic of the old religious emotion and
utterances was left in the dismantled and impoverished soul.
How easy it is to forget favours. How possible it is to give so
many favours to an ungrateful person as to cause that person to
imagine he has a right to claim them as his due. The giving of
favours where gratitude is not kept up proportionately with the
gift is a heart-hardening process. The Lord thus hardened
Pharaoh's heart. If there had been fewer mercies and more
scourges, Pharaoh's heart would not have been hardened. But
who expects to find a man praying to-morrow morning because
Psulmcvi. 12-14.] SPIRITUAL DECLENSION. 7,1']
the sun has risen upon his fields ? We expect the sun to rise,
and if he come with a cloud before his face we grumble and
murmur. God has given us that sun so long and so punctually,
that if he were withheld to-morrow morning we should complain
bitterly because of the withholding of the usual light. The sun
is a daily gift. Give us this day our daily bread, our daily light,
our daily health, our daily life. At eventide God draws the
black line around us and says, " The day is past and gone, and
to-morrow is in eternity."
Some men have wonderful absorbing powers. They take any
number of favours and never remember one of them. If this be
so, as between man and man, what wonder that the charge should
heighten in solemnity and gravity in its religious applications ?
It is the miracle which astounds the Omniscient. There are
some things for which even God cannot prepare himself From
all eternity the whole drama of this human life lay outspread
before him in every detail, in every accent of expression and
every flush of colour, and yet he himself has been afflicted with
surprise. Does it not seem to be so in the hearing of such words
as these, namely, " Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth :
for I have nourished and brought up children and they have
rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his
master's crib ; but Israel doth not know, my people doth not con-
sider." We have carried our ingratitude so far as to surprise
Omniscience and shock Almightiness.
"They soon forgat." Religious impression is most transitory.
Beautiful as the morning dew while it lasts, it exhales, and we
see no rainbow in the sky. It vanishes, it perishes, unless it be
diligently seized and wisely deepened, ^ea, even cultured with
all a husbandman's patient care, until it blooms into flower or
develops into fruit, and is fit for the Master's plucking. What is
forgotten so soon as religious impression ? The first thing that
we hear at the church door is a remark about the weather, and
that remark will obliterate every hymn, anthem, and sacred
reading; earnest prayer and high expostulation will go down in
one inquiry about the fickle climate. Frail is the thread that
binds us to heaven, mean and weak the threadlet that attaches
VOL. XII. 22
338 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cvi. 12-14.
us to the altar and the church — a breath may break it, a little
splutter of flame may crack it, and then our life may be lost.
Perhaps the catastrophe ended at forgetfulness ? No ; further
reading gives denial to that happy hope. The reading is black,
and proceeds thus : " They lusted exceedingly in the wilderness,
and tempted God in the desert." They believed, they lusted,
they sang, they tempted. It is such swift oscillation that we
find in our own consciousness and experience of religious things.
Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. Hold
thou me up, and I shall be safe. You a believing man, and now
every passion aflame ? You a singing man, and npw you are
tempting and mocking God by hard words and evil questions,
and setting him tasks which you suppose to be above his power
or beyond his grace ? O Lucifer, son of the morning, how art
thou fallen from heaven ! Take care. Beware of dogs, beware
of the concision, beware of evil workers, beware of bad com-
panions, beware of relationships that please for the moment and
then embitter all remaining time.
If the ancient people of God believed and sang — and then
lusted, forgat and tempted God — who are we that we should of our
own strength be more competent to reply to the challenges of the
devil or to bear the burden of the world ? Let us connect
ourselves with the sum total of humanity ; and read in the
history of others what might have happened in our own career ;
and learn from the ruins of the ages that we, too, might have
\ been thrown down in uttermost disorganisation and afflicted with
incurable disease. Do not say that you are stronger than other
men that have lived : humanity is one ; history is lost upon us
if we do not see in that which has occurred to others what
may happen to ourselves. It is painful to think of the possi-
bility of a believing man, a singing Christian, forgetting his
God, so that when he hears the holy name he does not recognise
it.;»» And more distressing the still graver thought of a preacher
after having preached to others becoming a castaway — falling
from the pulpit into perdition, laying down God's hymn and
psalm to take up the devil's ribald . praise. How sad to
think that lips that were opened in prayer to heaven should be
Psalm cvi. 12-14.] SPIRITUAL DECLENSION. 339
opened in homage to the devil — yet this same tragic thing is
possible to every one of us. Let him that thinketh he standeth
take heed lest he fall.
The backslider may not fall all at once : he falls from his singing
into forgetfulness — nothing more serious. He falls into a nega-
tive state, he does not instantly lay down the hymn-book and
begin to blaspheme God. There is an intermediate course.
Thus — in the ardour of his piety he attends the sanctuary twice
every Sabbath. By-and-by he says he is afraid to go out in the
evening. Mark the beginning of a possible declension. That
statement is perfectly true in some cases, and therefore we have
no wish whatever to mitigate its force or to dispute its religious
application in those instances. In the ardour of his early piety
he attended the week-day services. He thinks that perhaps he
has been neglecting his duty to his family by doing so, and
therefore he surrenders them. Mark the beginning. Once he
loved his own pastor above all others: now he wanders, he
cannot bear to hear any one man more than three times. Mark
the beginning. Once he was not afraid to say to others, " Come
with me, I am going to a high mountain top to-day : the outlook
Js beautiful, the breeze is healthy, the companionship is inspiring
— come with me and hear a man that in Christ's name told me
all things that ever I did : is not this an apostle of truth ? "
And now when challenged with having heard that same man, he
says, " Well, I did -drop in now and then : I do not mean to say
that I have often been there, but at the same time I — I "
What, you did drop in there ? Did you not come with both^eet
and with your head and your heart and your whole love, and
was it not the happiest hour of your life you spent there ? O'
man, tell no lies : do not wriggle out of the condition.
Thus we go little by little astray. The gradient that goes
down is not abrupt ; it is hardly measurable by the finest
instruments, but it is going down still. Beware the first evil,
beware the cooling process. Religion is nothing if it is not
passion. Christianity is not a creed of words, it is an inspiration
of life, it is a sacrifice.
( \
How is it going to be with us? We have forgotten God^
340 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cvi. 12-14.
let us pray to him to become the inspiration of our memory,
that we may begin our counting where we left it off, and number
all his mercies, until by their multitudinousness they confound
and disable us. If we could remember any one instance of our
life as we ought to remember it, the recollection of that instance
would be a graphic, complete, final reply to every temptation to
disbelieve and distrust our God. Now and again we do see our
lives, we get a swift panoramic view of the wondrous past,- and
sometimes it so flashes upon our vision that we turn up the head
glowing with a new life, and open our lips to oflFer a new psalm,
a new anthem of gratitude to him who was our fathers' God, and
who has never allowed us to know the hunger that had no bread,
the thirst that could find no water, the weariness that could find
no rest.
NOTE.
The Psalter in Hebrew is divided into five books, perhaps to make it
uniform in this respect with the Pentateuch, or for some other reason of
which we are ignorant, which end respectively with the 41st, the 72nd,
the 89th, the io6th, and the 150th Psalms. Each of these Psalms ends
with a doxology, or ascription of praise; the first three with the words
Amen and Amen, the fourth with Amen, Hallelujah, and the last with
Hallelujah only, as though praise unceasing were to form the occupation
of the world of praise.
It is impossible not to observe that there is a certain principle or plan
observed in the traditional arrangement of the Psalms, though it may not
be very definite or very closely followed : for example, the first Psalm is
clearly a kind of introduction to the whole book, and the last Psalms swell
louder and louder the notes of praise, as though they were intended to be
a fitting conclusion to a series of hymns and prayers which had so often
been fraught with sorrow. , . .
As long as the career of mortal man is what it is in life, chequered by
trial, danger, and bereavement ; as long as the human heart is what it is,
full of want and sin, and ever liable to sorrow, so long will the Psalms of
David find their echo there, and not fail of earnest and anxious readers. The
songs of Horace or Anacreon will please for a while, and will please an
educated many or few, as the case may be ; but a time will come when
these will lose their sweetness for even their greatest admirers, and there
must always be many whom they will fail to touch ; but with respect to
the prayers and hymns of David there can be no such thing as old age.
They are the voice of man as man, and they are the truest expression of
what must ever be permanent and unchanging — man's relation to God.
Nor is it necessary to look far for a reason, because the Psalms deal
more especially with those aspects of human life in which all men are
reduced to a common level, imminent danger, heart-rending grief, and a
passionate longing for divine assistance. It is self-evident that many of
the Psalms are the natural, spontaneous outpouring of the joy or sorrow
of the writer. In this respect they are simply unrivalled, and stand alone
among all the poetry of all nations and languages. — Professor Stanley
J,EATHES, M.A,
PRAYER.
Almighty God, we bless thee for the testimony of thy saints in all ages.
All the houses of history have said, His mercy endureth for ever. In thy
mercy we live. It is not only mercy, it is tender mercy. Who can tell how
tender is the mercy of God ? Thou wilt not break the bruised reed, thou
wilt not quench the smoking flax ; thou gatherest the lambs in thine arms,
thou carriest them in thy bosom ; thy loved ones are as the apple of thine
eye unto thee : who then shall speak worthily of the divine mercy, or sing
worthily of the divine love by which we were created and have been
redeemed and shall be sanctified and glorified ? Herein is the mystery of
love. Other love we have known, but who can know in all its fulness the
love of God which passeth knowledge? Help us to believe that we must
grow in grace, and grow in wisdom, and continually ascend in all holy
strength and power until we do more clearly apprehend the immeasurable-
ness of the love of God. Oh that thy redeemed ones might no longer be
silent ! May they bear testimony to the tenderness and fulness of the mercy
of the Lord ; then shall the worst hear and wonder and inquire ; on the
right hand and on the left shall a man arise to say. Come, all ye that fear
God, and I will declare unto you what he hath done for my soul. May this
be an age of witness-bearing, may there still be living confessors, souls that
shall say, God is love. We commend one another to thy tender mercy :
keep us as in the hollow of thine hand : when the enemy would come in as
a flood, lift up thy Spirit as a standard against him, and may he be made to
know that God is for us, therefore none can be successfully against us.
Pity those who are in great distress ; heal the misery of our hearts ; send
forth thy Word, a light, a sun, a gospel from heaven, and let men answer
it with contrition, broken-heartedness, and hope in the Cross of Christ.
Blessed Cross ! all-saving Cross ! before it we daily, constantly, bow as
before the altar on which alone our hope is founded. The Lord be with us,
mightily, gently, sometimes almost visibly, so that in our souls there may be
no fear. Amen.
Psalm cvii. 43.
" Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall under-
stand the lovingkindness of the Lord."
THE SILENT CHURCH.
THIS is the higher wisdom. The text begins with the
"wise." Wisdom is assumed, — not intellectual wisdom,
which is often only another name for ignorance, but moral
342 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cvii. 43.
wisdom, — wisdom of the heart. Whoso hath such wisdom, and
will apply it in the observation of history, providence, myste-
rious interposition, shall come little by little to understand —
not intellectually only, but morally, sympathetically; as if by
identification with the thing itself — the lovingkindness of the
Lord. Lovingkindness is a quality of kindness ; tender mercy
is a quality of mercy, — a peculiar, distinctive quality, an incom-
municable quality. Kindness we see on every hand, and yet
hardly ever see at all, in its pureness, and simplicity, and pro-
foundest reality, because of admixtures that are human and
almost inevitable. But in our searching after the heart of this
kindness we come upon a quality which we distinguish by the
name lovingkindness, — kind kindness, refined refinement, spiritual
spirituality ; the innermost thought and pulse and life of things.
This is no rude judgment, no superficial or hasty criticism; as
who shall speak of kindness, goodness, amiability : this is dis-
criminating, critical consideration of innermost qualities : and the
Psalmist is not ashamed of the redundance, " tender mercy/'
" lovingkindness." When love is sparing of language, when
love tries to be concise, love puts its own eyes out, and inflicts
a stab upon its own heart. Love has a right to be redundant;
it flows like a river. This is more than Hebrew multiplication
of words; this cometh of the necessity of things, — the heart
seeing beyond kindness up to lovingkindness, beyond mercy to
mercy that weeps hot tears, tender mercy, that will spare the
smoking flax and the bruised reed. That is the text
What are we called upon to do ? To " observe." But that
is a scientific word. Certainly. There is no book more scientific
than the Bible. Is not science called sometimes the art of
observation ? Here is a religious teacher who says, Be scientific
— observe. Sometimes we want a microscope, sometimes a
telescope ; everything depends upon the object on which we
are fixing our observation; if it be minute, there is the micro-
scope ; if it be distant, there is the telescope ; what we have
to do is to observe, — which few men can do. There are few
born survej^ors. There are men enough who can lump things,
and speak about them in vague generalities, but to observe the
Lord, to watch him, we must neither slumber nor sleep; we
\
Psalm cvii. 43-] '-LHE SILENT CHURCH. 543
must not look at broad lines, marking historical boundaries, we
must look at all the fine lines, all the minute stippling, all the
interior, wondrous touch, as of spiritual fingers ; then we shall
come to a just induction, to a soundly theological and rational
conclusion concerning things. We cannot have the rough-and-
ready man in the Church, and appoint him to tell us how love
is going and how providence is shaping itself, and what lights
are burning on the horizon. He may have his place, but it is
not in the chair of criticism. He should be swift to hear, and
be quite a stammerer in speech. Would God there were more
stammering in certain sections of the Church, now being over-
burdened and noised to death by fluency 1 We are not to
observe a little here and a little there, but we are to observe
minutely, we are to observe in detail, to observe the little spectral
shapes no larger than the hand of a man, and we are to observe
them growing until the accumulation fills the firmament with
promise of rain. It is delightful to find a word which binds us
to a scientific policy. Isaac Newton said he was not aware that
he excelled any one except it might be in the faculty of paying
attention — shall we call it the faculty of observation ? Darwin
never slept ; he was observing whilst he was dreaming ; he left
the object for a moment or two and came back to it to follow it
on. And one would imagine from some of Sir John Lubbock's
most useful books, packed as the}'' are with information, that he
had spent the most of his life m an ant-heap. He knows about
ants — their policy, their economy, their method, their battles,
their conflicts, their conquests — all their wondrous system of
society. When a man observes God in that way, there will be
no atheists. Atheism comes from want of observation, — not
observation of a broad vulgar kind, as for example the eyes
that take in a whole sky at a time without taking in one solitary
gleam of light for careful and reverent analysis, but an observa-
tion as minute and detailed, and patient and long-continued, as
a man has bestowed upon the habits of an ant. Who would
go to a man who had never seen an ant, in order to learn from
him the habits of the busy little creature? We smile at the
suggestion. Yet there are men who go to professed atheists to
know what they think of theology 1 That which would be
ridiculous in science is supposed to be rather philosophical and
344 ^HE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cvii. 43.
somewhat broad-minded in the Church. We go to experts. We
are right in doing so. We ought to go to experts in the study
ot history, — not the broad vulgar history of kings, and rival
policies, and sanguinary battles; but the inner history of thought,
motive, purpose, spiritual growth, and those mysterious inven-
tions which seem to have no beginning and no ending, circum-
ferences without visible centre, centres without measurable
circumferences, — the mystery of social movement.
The Psalmist dwells mainly upon four classes of people.
Probably at that age of the world there were only four classes
of people available for purposes of religious illustration. He
deals with exiles, with prisoners, with sick men, and with men
who see the wonders of the Lord in the great waters. So, in
foreign lands, where there is no home ; in prison, where the life
is bound in cages of iron and brass ; in the sick-chamber, where
the life is worn down to one pain : and the great sea, which
allows navies to pass but never to leave a footprint. This
observing Psalmist opens the fifth book of the Psalter by saying
that if men would only carefully observe all these things, they
would come out of them singing and praising God, saying,
In Babylon we saw thy goodness, and in the sea of the south we
beheld how thy power lowered itself into pity and mercy.
The Psalmist does not neglect the extremities of men, when
they are toiling and struggling and are put to all manner of
distress. Indeed, he describes some of his clients, if we may so
call them, as men who are at their wits' ends ; literally, who
are reeling, first on the right hand, then on the left, staggering,
drunk, but not with wine. " They wandered in the wilderness
in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in." That is the
want of men. We cannot do without the city. Solitude is good
for a time ; to the truly growing and reverent soul, solitude is
essential, but it must be occasional, it must be well-apportioned,
it must be seasonable ; it must follow the battle, it must come
after the strenuous strife with darkness and sin and misery and
social helplessness : the summer holiday must come after the
winter's toil ; then is solitude most welcome, then the wilderness
is a huge garden. But taking life in its breadth and generality,
f salm cvii. 43-] THE SILENT CHURCH. 345
men, plural Man, social man, wants a city to dwell in. The city
is a poem, the city is a plan. Every citizen who pays attention
to his limitations and responsibilities is more or less of a states-
man. He learns something by having neighbours. He says,
This is a party-wall. A common phrase; there is nothing in it
in the ordinary specifications and covenants of builders and
leaseholders, but looked into carefully it means, — I live on this
side, and my neighbour lives on that, and if the wall should fall
down we have both to build it. That is life in the city. The
moment a man is joined by some other man, that man's rights
are divided. If there were no other man but one in the solar
system, no doubt he would be a person of great consequence —
to himself: but the moment a little child came into that solar
system his empire would be disputed, he must consider others,
he must watch the child. Thus solitude is a larger condition
than mere loneliness of the body. Solitude may in its larger
signification point to one of those responsibilities the exercise of
which develops the best and finest powers of the human soul.
The cities are only symbols. The Lord allows us to bring our
stone and timber and glass together, and allows us to make
thoroughfares, and to have even corporations and councils; and
he allows us to go forth at our full height as men of real civic
importance : all the while he is saying, There is only one city
that hath foundations : all these cities of yours are huts, places
to dwell in for a day and a night, but on the third day you must
be out. Blessed are they who declare plainly even in London
that they seek a country out of sight, a city that hath foundations,
whose builder and maker is God. Live in your own city only,
the hut which your own hands have made, and you lose the
whole poetry of the situation. Every roof should mean in its
higher symbolism a sky, every home should be the beginning of
heaven. Poor wanderers ! — were they the exiles returning from
Babylon, and coming back to the Holy Land through every
gateway accessible and passable ? or is this a general description
of the condition of human pilgrimage ? Be it local, or be it
general, there is the fact, that man can only do with a limited
amount of solitude. Where he has to make his road every day,
where there is only one little line of path, made by the feet
it may be of beasts of prey, where there are no thoroughfares,
346 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cvii. 43.
no broad open roads with beauteous fields on either side, speak-
ing of warmth, and comfort, and hospitality, and home, man says,
"^When will this end ? where is the city, the place of habitation,
the home ? where can we talk together, talk one another out of
our miseries, speak one another by tender eloquence into new
liberties and larger rights ? ,
The Psalmist dwells upon the limitations and restrictions of
the man and the society, the whole idea of humanity : "Therefore
he brought down their heart with labour" — literally, with misery
"they fell down, and there was none to help." Sometimes we
are all helpless. A question arises on which no one, even the
whitest-haired, even the wisest, can shed light ; then we fall
down. What a striking, vivid image is this of the reality of
things. We fall down. We can only stand in the degree in
which we are wise, or capable, or conscious of ability to meet
in some degree the pressure and agony of the situation : there
comes a time when we fall down not in worship but in feeble-
ness, and when though we be a multitude in number there is
none to help. What did they do ? " Then they cried unto the
Lord in their trouble." That has been his black Church through
all the ages. Who ever went to a wedding to find the Lord ?
Who ever went out in high summer noon, saying. Let us pray ?
Then there seemed to be no need for prayer : but " in their
trouble" — a church without windows, a church all blackness;
when they could not see one another because of the denseness
of the cloud — " they cried." The voice can go forth when the
vision fails. We see God best in the darkness ; we never knew
the meaning of the words " I am the Resurrection and the Life "
till we kissed the icy lips of the one child for whom the man
waited outside to carry his ashes to the grave-pit. Then, when
that voice fell upon us, we said, Lord, this must be true : yes,
speak again — " I am the Resurrection and the Life." We
needed some one to face that white enemy that blanches every-
thing he looks upon ; we spoke to him, and he mocked us with
a grin ; we implored him, and he trampled upon our prostrate
form : but here is One that comes to him with majesty and says,
" I am the Resurrection and the Life." In trouble that gospel
was announced. When the house was desolate because the
Psalm cvii. 43-] THE SILENT CHURCH. 347
brother was dead, God opened that window in it through which
the sisters saw all heaven's vitality.
The Psalmist, by a fine touch, artistic as well as spiritual,
indicates how sometimes men are the mere sport of nature : —
" He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up
the waves thereof." Can they not throw oil upon the waters ?
What oil would fill the Atlantic? Can the captain not say to
the waves) " Peace, be still " ? Yes, but the waves do not know
him, though he be robed in uniform, and be gilded with medals.
Can all the passengers not combine to say. We are men and you
waves must not hurt us ? Yes, they can do that, they can " call
spirits from the vasty deep." To call is one thing : for the
spirits to come, for the sea to obey, is another. " Commandeth "
is a large word ; literally, he spake, — so common a word as that.
All great deeds in the Bible have been done, not by commanding,
which is a term indicative of high majesty, but by speaking,
saying : " And the Lord said. Let there be light," and the whole
firmament gleamed with glory: "And the Lord said. Let us
make man," and man stood up almost a god : " The Lord spake,"
and the sea fell into infinite undulations, and the ship was a
creaking toy, now in the valley, now on the hill, in the trough
and on the crest — absolutely helpless. It is instructive to note
sometimes how we are almost the mere sport of nature.
The Lord "sent his word and healed them," — literally, he
sends his word, and heals them. Is this the word referred to in
the expression " commandeth," or spake ? Should this word be
printed with a capital W ? Is it more than a vocable, a syllable ?
Does it live ? Is this the Logos ? There may be some who
would starve the soul and say. Do not read such meanings into
the Psalms : there are others who have read beyond the psalms
into the gospels and are able to say, Now take back your New
Testament light and hold it over your Old Testament object and
read the psalm again : — In the beginning was the Word, the Word
was with God, and the Word was God : and the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us : he sent his Word. God is always
sending ; the Gospel is a sent blessing ; and it is sent to be sent ;
around the world it goes, God's angel, God's voice, God's benediction.
348 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cvii. 43.
Who is to say this ? " Let the redeemed of the Lord say so."
" The redeemed of the Lord " is an expression that Isaiah made
use of: — " And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come
to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads : they
shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee
away." The redeemed have been silent too long. We want
a speaking Church ; we want a Church of testimony. Every
man can at all events relate his own experience, modestly and
tenderly. A man may not be able to expound prophets and
paraphrase sweet gospels so that a thousand men shall listen to
him with more or less of interest, but every man can tell what
he has seen and known and felt and handled of the Word of life.
" Let the redeemed of the Lord say so." Church, thou hast been
silent too long. O assembly of the saints, why this speechless-
ness ? You will be mocked, of course. If a man shall lock
himself up in selfish contemplation and spend his life in self-
analysis, then no notice will be taken of him ; but if he come out
and speak boldly, he will be taunted and sneered at and ridiculed
and undervalued and misrepresented. Which is to be the guide
of life, the overpowering inspiration of God, which says, Speak
out ! or the self-considering misinspiration of time and sense and
self which says. Stay at home ?
What shall be the result of this observation : Shall man see
the power of God, the grandeur of God, the majesty of God ?
No : or through them he will see the further quality, the
beauteous reality : — " Whoso is wise, and will observe these
things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the
Lord." The exiles shall say, He was good to us in Babylon,
though we knew it not at the time. The prisoners shall say,
There was not one bar too many of iron or brass in the cage that
held us : we see it now. Sick men shall say. In the sick-
chamber where we mourned and pined in weakness God was
love. And men who have been tossed to and fro on great
waters shall say, The earth is the Lord's and the fulness
thereof, and his also is the fulness of the sea. They come out
of all this tumult of experience, not saying, God is great, God is
majestic, God is overwhelming : hear them ; they come out of all
this tragedy, agony, loss, saying, " God is love.
Psalm cxy. 8.
"They that make them are like unto them ; so is every one that trusteth
in them."
FALSE RELIGIONS.
THUS our manhood comes out of our religion. Whether
that religion is false or true, it shows itself in the quality
of manhood which it creates. We may therefore begin our
religious arguments from the human side. All men cannot
begin from the metaphysical points. Only a few human minds
really care anything for pure metaphysics. Abstract preachers,
therefore, preach to emptiness : concrete preachers may get at
least an occasional hearing. In the Christian religion, and in
every religion, we start the point from the concrete or human
side, the question simply being. What kind of men does our
religion make ? Without inquiring into the metaphysics of our
faith, how does it come out in manhood ? If it makes really pure,
noble, magnanimous, beneficent men, it is a true faith, however
many of its documents it may have lost, and however much it may
have been perverted in statement by its most devoted apologists.
Here we seem to be upon a rock. That is the only test of religion,
of orthodoxy, of doctrine. How does our faith incarnate itself?
What sort of man does it make ? How does it affect the shop,
the counting-house, the family, the conscience, the individual, and
the variously-related life ? We take our stand upon that solemn,
practical doctrine. If the religious faith should result in little
men, invisible souls in an other than physical sense, we cannot
have a very cheering estimate of the faith. If the religious
belief result in sectarianism, narrowness, bitterness, then the true
God is not believed in. He may be accepted intellectually;
serial literature may have been created in his name, and all the
machinery may be orthodox ; but if the soul be poor, weazened,
sapless, musicless, although the right God may be believed in in
350 2HE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cxv. 8.
name, the faith is only nominal, there has been no participation
in the divine nature, and the men who profess God without
living God are idolaters, to whatever church they may belong.
Reasoning of this kind throws a very solemn responsibility upon
believers. If we find them narrow and little, conceited and
pompous, selfish and sordid, what do we care for their catechism ?
We say, " If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is
that darkness ! " A catalogue of orthodox doctrines matched by
a heterodox series of moral contradictions, — there is no irony so
grim I
Retiring from the pronouns of the text in order to come to
the substantive and particular, we find that the Psalmist is dis-
coursing about false gods whom he denominates " idols " :
concerning them, he says, " They have mouths, but they speak
not : eyes have they, but they see not : They have ears, but
they hear not : noses have they, but they smell not : They have
hands, but they handle not : feet have they, but they walk
not : neither speak they through their throat " (vers. 5-7).
A false religion has all the outward signs of importance. A
false religion could not live if it showed only its lying side.
Even a lie could not live but for the one grain of truth that may
be in it : it may be a grain of probability only, or even of
possibility, but the lie owes its life, however brief, to the element
of at least seeming truth, or possible truth, that may be in it.
So with false religions : enumerate them, set them all out in
a line, and one looks very much like another as to outward
appearance. How long would a piece of lead be in the market-
place if offered as a coin ? Not one moment. But if treated,
if smelted, minted, stamped, drilled, and made to look like
a coin, it might deceive somebody, it might live a little while.
To what would it owe its life ? Not to its intrinsic quality, but
to its appearance. So when you cite the religions of the world,
and set them all in a line, you are perfectly right in saying,
Behold them, and see how very strikingly they resemble one
another. The counterfeit coin lives in its resenblance: take
away this resemblance, and you take away its whole value ;
its sipiilitude is its life. What wonder, then, that we find men
Psalm cxv. 8.] FALSE RELIGIONS. 351
deceived by religions that are superficial, and merely human
inventions, that have nothing to live upon that is of an eternal
and divine nature ? It is quite possible that the counterfeit
coin may be more brilliant than the real coin. Hovi^ did the
five-pound note pass ? Because it was like a five-pound note ;
the paper was the same, the mill mark was the same, the
writing was the same ; the resemblance was the reason of the
successful deception. A piece of plain paper never would have
done the work. No man ever took a piece of plain paper for a
five-pound note. It is only when we come into the region or
district of resemblances, minute particulars, that we are deceived.
Sometimes even the eye of an expert is misled. The expert
says, I think this is genuine. Afterwards it is proved to be counter-
feit : how was the expert misled ? By appearances. So you
may take a false religion and a true religion, and if you go only
by appearances the one may be strikingly like the other, and
you may even say, What possible difference can it make
which of them I take ? It makes no difference, except the
difference between falsehood and truth. Young minds, inventive,
imaginative, audacious minds may be strongly tempted when
health is good and fortune is prosperous to take up any religion
that looks good. This is the continual and the subtle temptation
that is addressed to all hearts. True religion cares nothing for
appearances unless they represent realities. Religion does not
value hands that cannot handle : the hand is judged by the
handling. True religion does not say, Behold, here is a religion
with eyes, therefore it must be a good religion : true religion
holds up some object before those eyes and says. What is this ?
and the eye being so to say deaf and dumb, what is the use of it
as a mere figure or outline or artistic success ? Truth being real
itself will only be content with realities.
This is the way in which all things must be tested. What is
your religion doing? It is criticising, it is finding fault, it is
living upon mischief; it is energetic in wrong ways, its purpose
is to spoil the lives of others : then it is not the true religion.
What is your church doing? Enjoying itself; curtaining itself
in luxury, making a velvet path for its feet; seeing that
the very air which it breathes is perfumecj : the church hates
352 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalmcxv.8.
everything that is noisy, sensational, aggressive; it is a contem-
plative and slumbrous church. Then the true religion says, It
is no church at all, and I now at God's altar excommunicate it —
make room for it in the wilderness ! Even a five-pound note,
to recur to the homely illustration, is nothing in itself; it must
represent something behind, it must stand in the place of solid
bullion ; it can only be a convenience, being lighter to carry than
the metal : but if there be not an equivalent value in metal
behind it, itself, though genuine, is a lie for practical purposes.
So a man may boast of his faith, whereupon James will say,
Can faith save him ? unless it be representing something behind,
something of intrinsic and divine value. Much is mistaken for
faith that is not faith, that is mere intellectual assent, or mere
intellectual indifference. A man does not believe things which
he simply names with his mouth. He only believes those things
for which he would die. What havoc this makes in the professed
beliefs of the Church! Yet everything must be judged by the
degree in which it realises its own pretensions. To pretend to
have hands means power of handling, or it is a lie : to profess
to have feet and yet to be unable to walk is to contradict your
own statement : to have ears carved by an Angelo which yet
cannot hear a thunderburst is to have ears that are visible
falsehoods. Where we find hands we have a right to expect
handling : where we find faith we have a right to expect morality,
or service, or action : and if we with all Christian profession of
an intellectual kind are not balancing that profession by actual,
living, useful service, then let all the mockers of the universe
taunt us, saying, They have hands, but they handle not. The
taunt is not a mere taunt ; it is a sneer justified by reason. If
there were no hands we should pity the sufferer. Who expects
to refresh himself from the branches of an oak tree? Yet if the
hungry soul should come to a fig tree in the time of figs, and
should find upon the tree nothing but leaves, hunger has priestly
rights of cursing, hunger may excommunicate that tree from the
trees of the garden, because it pretended to be a fruit tree and
yet it grew nothing but leaves. There comes a time when the
world's hunger will curse every pulpit that does not give to it
the bread of life. That bread is substantial ; that bread needs
no argument to recommend it : let hunger and the bread meet,
Psalmcxv.8.] FALSE RELIGIONS. 353
and certain sacred results will follow. We must not lessen the
quality of the bread. I know nothing about the " divinity " of
Christ. I take that expression and nail it to the counter, and
condemn it. It can be used by all sorts of people ; it can mean
various and totally different things. I believe in the Godhead ■
of Christ. That can only mean one thing. Divinity ! I have
seen the word given out to poet, and philosopher, and dreamer,
and seer : but Godhead, Deity, that must be a personal and
undistributed term. So when men preach the Cross, I must
know what cross it is that is preached. There are many crosses :
there is only one true Cross, on which the Priest of creation died
that he might save every soul of man. The cross that will not
save is an idol that having hands handles not ; having a mouth,
speaks not ; that looks its lie.
Religions that can be fully explained are inventions and
quackeries. The Psalmist says so in verse 4 — " the work of
men's hands." Great power has no agencies that can be traced.
We want to account for the power of this poet, or the power of
that preacher, and power of that kind does not admit of exhaustive
analysis. It is when we get to the point of mystery that we
get to the point of explanation, paradoxical as the expression
may seem to be. The work of men's hands is measurable work :
what one man has done another man may do ; what man has
done man may undo : there is no security or permanence in the
work of men's hands. Man no sooner builds his palace than
nature begins to take the roof off. "The work of men's hands,"
so we say about catechisms and standards and creeds and idolised
formularies ; we encounter them with scornful laughter if they
be pressed beyond a given and definite point : — Who wrote
them ? What right had their authors to formulate them ? Who
knows whether they will always continue in the same belief?
Who can tell what the men who lived three centuries ago would
say to-day if they were living ? Let my faith go back upon the
Bible- itself, and rest upon that as upon a secure foundation;
and let me be sure of this one thing, that if I go into the Bible
in a prayerful, teachable spirit, saying, " Lord, help me to find
thyself here, and thy way and thy will and th};^ love," though I
be no priest or cunningly-instructed man, though I be but plain
VOL. XII. 23
354 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalmcxv. 8.
reader, yet I shall by the might of the Spirit of God be brought
into divine fellowship, and I shall" come out of that Bible under-
standing if not its letter yet its holy saving spirit. Do not let
us put the work of our own hands as an equivalent to God's
thought. Who would be content to put down upon paper on
which he worked an intricate calculation the first line as " Finite
equal to Infinite " ? Reason would decline to go further ; reason
would take its stand in opposition and say. Your fundamental
proposition is an impossibility and a contradiction and a lie.
Who shall say " Church equal to God," meaning by Church a
building or an institution differing from other institutions of the
kind ? If you ^iay, " The invisible Church, the redeemed Church,
equal to the Cross," you begin to see the meaning of the deepest
mysteries : for the Church is the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, —
wondrous things hath he done for his Bride that he might
present her unto himself a glorious Church, not having spot
or wrinkle or any such thing, — pure with heaven's pureness,
radiant with the beginning of day. Wondrous are the operations
of the human mind in this matter of finding possible or
nominal equals in human reason, especially peculiar is the
ecclesiastical mind. Was there ever a mind like Cardinal
Newman's ? He lives in a region into which some of us have
never ventured to set foot ; he has conducted controversies
which most men would regard as more or less of the nature of
cobwebs. He has been in extreme mental agony about things
that we have hardly ever spent a thought upon. He says in
his wonderful story, his Apologia pro Vita Sua, that he was in
the greatest possible perplexity about Romanism and Anglicanism
until he saw the words of Augustine, " Securus judicat orbis
terrarum" and in a moment, he says, the light fell upon him and
the Anglican theory was proved to be a delusion. Many of us
could read these words of Augustine, and feel quite comfortable
after having done so, but they tortured Newman. He says,
" They sounded in my ears day by day, and at last I clearly saw
that they pulverised (his own word) the Anglican theory of the
faith."
Let us therefore take care how we put up theory against
reality, invention against Scripture, and suggestion against
Psalmcxv.8.] FALSE RELIGIONS. 355
revelation. I want to live within the four corners of God's word.
I believe that there is no resting-place, except inconsistency,
between individualism and Popery. I would live so intimately
with my Father that I can my very self, without priest, or
minister, or teacher even, if I cannot avail myself of their services,
find out what he means me to be and to do ; I would be as a little
child that could take my book and say, Father, I cannot read this
but in thy light and under the power of thy Spirit, now let us
read it together. And out of that perusal I would come richly
laden with spiritual influence and spiritual blessing; yea, grammar
itself should not keep me back from seizing bj' certain powers
of the soul the inmost thought and sublimest purpose of God.
Remember there always comes a testing time. We shall one
day know which are true and which are false conceptions and
views. We cannot always live in the region of conjecture.
The true religion is not one guess superior to another guess, one
conjecture overflowing and exceeding another. There must
somewhere be the true religion, the real thought of God. Our
progress upon earth must be a progress towards that inner
ultimate truth. One man is a thousand miles ahead of another
in his quest after that truth, but if all the men be in line then
the last shall be as the first, and the first as the last, in thought,
in sincerity, in purpose. Here is a field beautiful with golden
wheat ; the sun seems to linger upon it ; it would seem as if
the sun were amazed at its own creation, and saying as God said
of the sun itself, " It is very good." Here is another field sown
at the same time and by the same man, and there is nothing
to be seen in it. How is this ? Is nature eccentric ? Is
nature capricious ? The reason is that one field was sown with
wheat, and the other with sawdust, and sawdust never comes
up. They were both sown ? Certainly ; but, oh ! what shall
the harvest be? So you have your theories. I say to agnostics
and materialists and others who are not Christians, — I say you
have your theories, inventions, suggestions, hypotheses : sow
them, but, O sirs, what shall the harvest be ? By that harvest
let truth and falsehood be judged 1
Psalm cxix. 19.
" I am a stranger in the earth : hide not thy commandments from me."
HUMAN PILGRIMAGE.
THIS is true of every human being. The term " stranger "
has, however, various degrees of intensity. Take, for
example, the child on the occasion of his first leaving home. He
is a stranger among his schoolfellows ; but, with the character-
istic simplicity and confidence of early life, he soon becomes
contented and happy in his new associations. This is the lowest
degree of intensity attaching to the term " stranger." Look at
the young man leaving home with a view of settling in business.
He is no longer the simple and trustful boy he was at school.
The involutions of the human heart have been disclosed to him
to some extent. Now there is a half-closing of the eye, which
denotes suspicion ; and now there is a hesitation which signifies
uncertainty as to consequences. He no longer adopts the first
reading of a smile or the first interpretation of a genial tone ; he
thinks there may be something behind all this which is designed
to embarrass his interests or despoil his property. He feels
himself a " stranger," and proceeds on the principle that every
man is a rogue until he has proved himself honest. Thus in a
fuller degree we have the meaning of the term " stranger."
Follow the traveller into a foreign nation, and the meaning will
be still further disclosed. He is unacquainted with the language,
with the usages, with the spirit of the people. They may be
plotting his plunder, — they may even be planning his assassina-
tion, yet he is ignorant of their designs. He sees ten thousand
faces in the gay city, but not one of them brightens at his
coming ; he hears ten thousand voices, but they utter no tone for
him. If he is looked at at all, he is looked at as a stranger ; if he
is spoken to at all, he is spoken to as a stranger ; and gradually
Psalm cxix. 19.] HUMAN PILGRIMAGE. 5^7
a sadness steals over his spirit, and in his heart there burns a
desire to commingle again with his own countrymen. A still
deeper shadow even than this darkens the term " stranger." Let
the traveller pass the boundaries of civilisation, in quest of the
sources of rivers, the riches of mountains, or the wild life of the
forest. Every man he meets is a savage ; every savage thirsts
for his blood : he wanders under the shadow of forests where
no human foot but his own has ever stepped ; he penetrates
valleys which have never echoed but to the scream of the eagle
or the roar of the lion, and through which there howls a drear
and hollow wind which chills him to the bone ; he stands on hills
made grey by uncounted ages ; and, though brave of heart and
strong of limb, yet a sense of desolation occasionally overpowers
him, and extorts from him the plaintive exclamation — " I am a
stranger in the earth."
Nor is this the worst that may befall him. Let him become
invalided in the far-off land ; let the burning fever lay hold of
him, or let the plague taint his blood ; let the days be days of
pain and the nights be nights of weariness ; then will he feel
how much is meant by the term "stranger," and how inex-
pressibly dear to him are all the elements which constitute even
the humblest home in his own land. Add to this the exhaustion
of his funds ; then look at him — then hear him : far away,
prostrate, poor, he cries in the bitterness of his soul — " I am a
stranger in the earth."
So much for strangeness of mere position, but all such strange-
ness very faintly represents the loneliness of the heart. A man
may be a greater stranger in his own land, or even in his own
family, than he can ever be on the wildest seas or bleakest hills.
The traveller sighs for his home, and solaces himself with hopes
of renewed association made the happier by the perils of absence ;
but the man who is a stranger at his own fireside shivers in a
loneliness which has no hope from earth, and which would
become despair but for the bow with which God has arched the
storm, and declared the permanence of his regard for man. To
carry in your breast a misunderstood heart is to feel every day
the disadvantage and sorrow of a stranger. To be misunder-
358 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cxix. 19.
stood by those who are afar oif need not trouble the soul deeply ;
but to be misapprehended by those who bear our name or carry
our image is to be the victim of continual crucifixion.
Thus step by step we ascend to the highest meaning of the
term stranger, and get a partial view of the condition of the
Psalmist when he said — " I am a stranger in the earth." Regard-
ing the text as presenting one aspect of human life, we may
review the grounds upon which the assertion rests, and thus
confirm ourselves in an earnest recognition of the Christian's true
position in the present state of existence.
I am as a stranger in the earth because of the impermanenct
of my position. Here we have no continuing city. At any
moment the posts of our tent may be struck, and we may be
borne forward to another scene. '* Death's shafts fly thick ;
here lies the village swain, and there his pampered lord." The
necessities of daily life may drive a man up and down with a
harsh hand, but how secure soever his position there is one
pursuer who can neither be bribed nor deterred. Look at yonder
castle on the steep hill-side. Its walls are thick, its defences are
strong. The rich man's gold has thrown the charms of art upon
the ruggedness of nature ; garden and fount, glade and brook,
birds of rarest plumage and sweetest song, broad paths on which
the sunshine blazes, and hidden tracts on which it only glints,
wreathing the shadows into tassels and tangles of every shape;
all that money can buy or taste devise may be found in that hill-
side home : —
"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
This guest of summer,
The temple-haunting martlet, does approve.
By his lov'd mansionry, that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here."
Yet into this enchanted ground the fell pursuer finds his way,
and through all the summer light brings the lordly owner to the
house appointed for all living. Truly the rich man, as well as
the poor, is a " stranger in the earth." We are strangers and
sojourners on the earth, as all our fathers were. We are as
Psalm cxix. 19.] HUMAN PILGRIMAGE. 359
flowers in the morning, but at eventide our very root has withered
away. The great men of the city die, and in a few years their
names are forgotten ; the poor man dies, and soon none can tell
which clod of the valley was he.
I am as a stranger in the earth because of my life and language.
If there be but a slight difference between the Christian and the
secularist, it is because the Christian has not been " transformed
by the renewing of his mind," for though bearing a new name
he carries an old nature. We instantly detect a foreigner by so
small a sign as an accent or a posture ; and the Christian is
known to men of the world by a glance or tone, by a frown or
smile. It should be the Christian's business to live down by a
sublime, never-wavering faith all the little and selfish maxims
and policies of the world, and to inaugurate an era of inex-
tinguishable enthusiasm in relation to the heavenly life. This
he will do most effectually not by destructive criticism, but by
a quiet, all-penetrating, and all captivating example. Many men
are not merely powerless, but self-defeating, whett they begin to
criticisej their words are as weapons of war ; Ibut when they
live their convictions, they work as powerfully yet as silently
as the all-transforming light. This should be the Christian's
business as a stranger — to operate as the light, not as the
lightning — to master men by attraction, and not by reprobation.
I am a stranger in the earth because of the perils to which I
am exposed. The adventurous explorer feels that he is in
constant danger. A stride may bring him upon the nest of a
serpent ; behind the next crag a tiger may crouch ; and when he
stoops to drink of the brook the imprint of the lion's paw arouses
him to watchfulness. It is thus in moral pilgrimage. The way
lies through a troubled region. Our adversary the devil as a
roaring lion goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Our
feet cross the slimy track of the serpent, and our inexperienced
eyes are often tempted by an angel's light covering the infernal
darkness of a devil. There is poison in every stream ; there is
a worm at the heart of the fruit ; there is a thorn under the leaf
of the flower. Again and again, every day, we are driven into
a torturing consciousness of our ignorance and weakness in the
560 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cxix. 19.
world ; and the long-drawn sigh, could men rightly interpret it,
is continually telling the bitter story of the heart. The track of
the foe is everywhere. We feel a horrible sense of his omni-
presence. He gleams in the joys which beckon us to their
sunny pastures ; he skulks in the darkness which invites us to
repose ; his voice mingles with the song which charms the young
listener ; his shadow darkens the very hearthstone of home.
When we pray he seeks to becloud the mind and beget mistrust
in the heart, and when we open the Holy Book he tempts us to
think that no letter of it was written by God. The presence
and power of such a foe make us feel that we are but strangers,
still far distant from the land which is full of light and peace.
A man must feel all this in order to realise the help which
God is prepared to accord him. His heart must be quite given
up to home-sickness. He must have " a desire to depart, and
to be with Christ, which is far better." Then he will know
what the Psalmist meant when he said, "Hide not thy command-
ments from me." He meant what the mariner means when he
carefully consults his chart, while the night storm rocks the
vessel and the sea threatens to swallow it up in anger. He
gave up the direction of his own way, and cast himself upon
the wisdom and power of God.
"Hide not thy commandments from me:" these words abound
in practical suggestion. They show, for example, that God has
not been unmindful of the earthly life of his saints, but provided
for its effectual protection. "The steps of a good man are
ordered by the Lord, and he delighteth in his way." Here is
the speciality of divine interposition. God watches each man
as if he were the only man to be watched. " He will keep the
feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darknes&"
No good man need be at a moment's loss as to the direction
of his way. " In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall
direct thy paths." If there be a reverent pause, it shall be of
brief duration. " Thine ears shall hear a word behind thee,
saying, This is the way, walk ye in it." These words save
us, if we rightly heed them, from practical atheism. Like Enoch,
we may " walk with God ; " like Job, we may say, " He knoweth
Psalm cxix. 19.] HUMAN PILGRIMAGE. 361
the way that I take ; " we may say with Isaiah, " He giveth
power to the faint : " and with Paul we may affirm, that though
we are " cast down," yet we are " not destroyed." Is it nothing
to have God continually at our right hand ? Is it a small thing
to walk in the light of the divine countenance ? Is it a trifle to
be able to hide one's self in the cleft rock until the calamities
of life be overpast ? " Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest,
O Israel, my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is
passed over from my God ? " This is a false testimony, for
"the God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto
his people."
There are, then, two diiferent ways of meeting the exigencies
of our position " as strangers in the earth." We may take life
entirely into our own hands ; we may grope in blindness and
flounder in a most pitiful impotence ; we may shut out God ; we
may quench the Holy Ghost, and go headlong to perdition ; we
may do all that ; we may make fools of ourselves if we like I Or
we may place ourselves under God's direction, leaning not to our
own understanding, but resting in the Lord's grace and wisdom,
walking in ever-brightening light, and hastening to the unbe-
'clouded and eternal vision of the Lamb in heaven. These ways
are before us. It is not in God to ignore man's moral nature ;
he leaves him, therefore, the option of going to hell if he so
prefer 1
This subject should peculiarly impress the hearts of the young.
Life is to you an untrodden path. You know not its sinuousness,
its countless disappointments, its bitter hardships. Start well !
God's commandments will be a light unto your feet, and a lamp
unto your path.
" 'Twill save you from a thousand snares
To mind religion young."
" Be not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no under-
standing." Get wisdom at the outset : " Then shalt thou walk
in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble."
The subject, too, should deeply affect the hearts of parents.
Your children start their career from your fireside. Your maxims.
362 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cxix. 19.
principles, and examples enter into their notions of life, and to a
large extent determine the tone of their being. Would you like
your children to launch into the troubled life-sea without chart,
or compass, or guide of any kind ? If you are yourselves willing
to risk the consequences of infatuation, should not the eternal
interests of your children awaken your solicitude, and call you to
repentance and truthfulness of life ? I plead with you for their
sakes ! Think of the horribleness of a child learning atheism
from his own, father ! Ponder the awful possibility of a father
opening the gate of hell that his own child may enter ! You
cannot do God's work upon the child's heart, but you can do the
work which is next best. You cannot force your child along
the right way, but you can associate his earliest and tenderest
memories with reverence for God's commandments, faith in God's
Son, and all the charms of a beautiful and magnificent example.
To you who are walking in the light of God's countenance it
may appear superfluous to say, " Go forward ! " You have tested
the rottenness of all the staves which you have provided for your
own support ; they have broken and pierced your hand ! The
way has been long, hard, barren, and dreary to many of you, yet
every step of it has been taken by the feet of Christ, and as you
move along the rugged path you may hear him saying, " He that
endureth to the end shall be saved." Ah me, the end ! We
know not how suddenly we may come upon it ; the shadow is
lengthening so rapidly that it cannot be long till eventide ; there
are tokens of approaching sunset ; the air is cooler, the sky is
grayer, there are masses of cloud lying on the eastern horizon
— let it come. Time can take nothing from us that is of any
essential importance to our well-being; it can touch only the
carnal : while it is plundering us with one hand, it is enriching
us with the other. Being confident of this we calmly abide the
oncoming of night — there will be a short sleep, and then — then
the long summer day which has no sunset hour.
Psalm cxix. 46.
"I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be
ashamed."
GUILTY SILENCE.
A SILENT religion, or a speaking religion — which shall it
be ? David says, " I will speak ; " what do we say ? Too
often we resolve that we will keep silence.
r
As Christians, there is hardly a more important practical
inquiry which we can put to ourselves than this : — How far are
we guilty of keeping silence on the most vital and sublime of all
subjects, namely, the divine testimonies ? Take, as a great
fundamental truth, this fact, that Christians are the treasurers of
the divine testimonies. That is to say, Christians know what
God has revealed on all the subjects which involve the pardon,
the purity, and the peace of man : they profess to have read all
his testimonies, to have felt them in their regenerating and
enlightening power ; and professing all this, the question is — are
they not bound, by the most powerful considerations, to com-
municate all they know, and to be themselves God's testimonies
translated into human life?
The difference between a silent religion and a speaking religion
is the difference between a dead Church and a living one. Living
men must speak, earnestness cannot be dumb ; if it pause for a
moment it is but the pause of a gathering stream, which deepens
that it may flow with a stronger rapidity. Silence may be ruin.
The neglect of an opportunitj'^ of speaking the right word may
not only imperil, but absolutely destroy, the destiny of a soul.
This matter, then, of silence or of speech, as relating to our
364 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cxix. 46.
religious life, becomes a test question, by which we may deter-
mine the reality of our spiritual condition.
The theme on which David says he will speak is God's testi-
monies. Has he chosen a barren topic ? Has he pitched his
tent on a fruitless land, or by an empty channel ? Look at the
range, the explicitness, and the emphasis of those testimonies,
and you will say that never did man choose so fruitful, so
abounding a theme. The fact is that there is not a single aspect
of life which lies beyond the circumference of the divine testi-
monies. God has anticipated everything, provided for everything.
David, then, is ready for all occasions, for all men, at all times,
and in all places. Does he enter the palace : God has special
messages to kings concerning righteousness, equity, oppression,
wisdom. Does he encounter sorrow : some of the richest and
tenderest testimonies of the divine revelation are specially
addressed to those whose eyes are blinded with tears, and in
whose breasts there is the tumult of a great woe. Does he enter
the family circle : God calls himself Father, and tells us of a love
more enduring than all the affections of human kind. Does he
see wickedness : God's testimonies burn unquenchably against
all wrong : in short, God's testimonies provide for every exigency
of human life, for every aspect of human experience, for every
anticipation of human hope. Nothing has been omitted ; in this
book there is provision for everything. The light nourisheth
all things, from the cedar in Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall.
Here is a word for kings, and here a word for the lowliest
subject ; here a psalm for joy, and here sympathy for woe ; here
is rest for the weary, and here stimulus for the indolent ; here is
work for health, and here is balm for sickness ; here is a word
for the hoary, and here a hymn for little children ; great trees
are here and little flowers, mighty rivers and threading rills,
great lights and glimmering sparks. What, then, is the urgent
practical lesson to be deduced from all this affluent provision ?
If there is one lesson clearer than another suggested by these
circumstances, it is that we are left without excuse if we fail to
speak of the divine testimonies. Opportunities occur every day.
Circumstances arise under which no words can be so beautiful,
so touching, so pithy, so real. Not a day elapses without securing
Psalm cxix. 46.] GUILTY SILENCE. 365
to every Christian an opportunity of preaching the gospel. But
are not Christians too often dumb when their voices should be
lifted up as thunder ? Are they not silent when their testimony
should be pronounced with the sweetness of persuasion and the
distinctness of a trumpet peal ? Verily on this ground every
man is guilty, God hath a long, black, unanswerable account
against the doing of every one of us. At best we have pro-
nounced our testimony in a hesitating tone ; where we ought to
have been emphatic, we have trembled ; where we should have
blighted error with a solemn, personal, experimental witness, we
have availed ourselves of an evasive phraseology, and lost oppor-
tunities of re-pronouncing the mysterious revelations of God.
What is the excuse which is pleaded in extenuation of this
course of irresolution and timidity ? The excuse may be thus
expressed, — " we are so afraid of cant." Are we, indeed ? As
a matter of fact there are some people who are never so guilty
of canting as when they are running cant down. There is a
great deal of cant talked against cant. Many a man makes
himself a reputation for sincerity by talking loudly against the
cant of other people. But is there no medium between cant and
an ungrateful silence ? Is there no medium between counterfeit
coin and covetousness ? Suppose a man talking after this fashion,
— "I should have given something to that cause, but I do so
much dislike base coin; I should have given bread to that
hungry child, but I do so dislike poison ; I should have sung
that grateful psalm, but I do so detest profane songs ; I should
have preached the gospel to that dying man, but I am so afraid
of hypocrisy." Would such talk be rational ? Would such talk
be tolerated by earnest men ? Yet, when we plead that Christians
should own their Lord, and maintain the honour of his Cross,
they do often leave him to the mockers' scorn, lest they should
be deemed guilty of cant ! Let us learn that there is an earnest
word, that there is a way of speaking an earnest word earnestly,
and that it is our bounden duty to speak of God's testimonies
with an enthusiasm beyond all shame. Yet why speak of this
as a duty ? Is duty the right word to apply in setting forth the
act of speaking on behalf of Jesus Christ ? We might recall that
word duty, and for it substitute all that suggests privilege and
366 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cxix. 46.
honour and joy, beyond all estimation. If men only speak
because speaking is a duty, there will be a constraint and poverty
and pointlessness about their testimony which will deprive it of
all vital influence ; but if men speak because the divine fire is
burning in them, because they feel themselves under the mighty
power of the Holy Spirit, then their words will be characterised
by a brightness, a force, an emphasis, and an unction, which
will compel the attention of the most stubborn auditors.
David says he will speak of the divine testimonies before
Kings. Mark these words — before kings ; he will not merely
speak in a cottage meeting, or in some hidden room where only
poverty, ignorance, and barbarity hide their heads, but before
kings — before his equals. Here is a most important lesson for
the Church of to-day ; for while Christian men are putting forth —
and rightly putting forth — strenuous efforts for the benefit of the
working classes, are they not in danger of neglecting a duty
nearer home ? It is a question for serious consideration whethen
in our anxiety for the welfare of strangers, we are not over-
looking those nearest to us, and therein committing a serious
error. If it is right to speak of God's testimonies at all, it is
right to speak of them to our equals and associates, and to those
by whom we are immediately surrounded in the occupations and
pursuits of daily life. We miss many opportunities in the mart
of business, on the crowded streets, in the busy market-place.
You need not commit yourselves to what is technically known as
" preaching ; " there is a way of doing so which may really do
more mischief than good, but there is also a way of speaking a
word, or turning a conversation, which will lift up daily life into
a light above the brightness of the sun. There are many curious
and startling inconsistencies perpetrated in connection with this
matter of not being faithful to the divine testimonies. We have
before the mind's eye a man who is a large employer of labour.
He might have an immense moral influence over those who work
in his employment. By a wise word here, and an encouraging
word there, he might achieve untold good. That man is a
member of the church, but his own servants are perfectly
unaware of his piety until they see his name advertised as a
speaker at a religious meeting. Is this right? Is this bearing
Psalm cxix. 46.] GUILTY SILENCE. 367
a testimony concerning God ? Is it rational that where a man
could do most good he should never attempt to do any at all?
What is the excuse usually pleaded upon this point ? It is the
objection to mingle business and religion. Who wishes to mingle
business and religion ? Raise your thoughts, for a few moments
soar above a miserable, shop-keeping world, ascend the hills of
eternity, and then remember that to those who earn their daily
bread at your hands, you never spoke one word concerning the
bread which endureth unto everlasting life ! You practically
denied God's name in commerce ; you never saw on your gold
any image and superscription but those of Caesar 1 We need
more and more enlightening on this subject of the connection
between religion and business. Business should be religion, and
religion should be business. Sunday is one of the seven days,
and not a day by itself standing in perfect isolation. The testi-
monies of God are for every day in the week. If Christianity be
a mere creed, if it be something outside of a man, if it be a mere
accident in the development of moral life, then you may keep it
for show-days ; if it be a picture which can be hung upon a wall,
then you have a right to put a screen over it when you wish :
but if Christianity is a life and not a thing, if it is in you as a
well of living water springing up into everlasting life, then you
simply cannot disassociate it from business ; you may as well
talk of disassociating the atmosphere from your lungs, or of
severing a star from its central sun.
If a man thinks that speaking God's testimonies simply implies
that he must say so much religion to-day, and quote a prescribed
portion of Scripture to-morrow, that man is leading an artificial
life, certainly not a life of true union with Christ. It is quite
possible to be quoting Scripture, and the sayings of wise men
and good men, without the heart being engaged in the holy
exercise of endeavouring to elevate the moral condition of man.
There are two ways of doing everything. Christ should be our
example ; as he went about doing good we should put our feet
into his footsteps, and re-deliver the tender and enlightening
words which issued from his pure lips.
There is something very marvellous, yet not altogether inex-
j68 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalm cxix. 46.
plicable, about human shame in relation to the divine testimonies.
There is no allowable topic of human conversation of which even
good people are more ashamed than the gospel. They will talk
upon any other subject more readily, more fluently, more intel-
ligently, and more courageously. This is a circumstance loudly
calling for consideration. Why should men be ashamed of God ?
Why should the creature shun the Creator ? Why should the
beneficiary forget the benefactor ? To add to the difficulty of
explaining this circumstance, it is to be recollected that the
persons now spoken of are not ashamed of the gospel as a system
of truth ; that is to say, they are not ashamed of theology in the
sense in which they are ashamed of experimental religion.
Christianity may be looked at as a department of theology, or
Christianity may be looked at as an element in our own spiritual
life ; in the former sense it may be discussed not only with
intelligence, but with enthusiasm, while in the latter it may be
ignored and shunned. Not only are such persons not ashamed
of the gospel as a system of truth, but to a certain extent they
are not ashamed of the gospel as vindicated by their own con-
science and experience. If interrogated as to what they feel,
they will instantly reply in a manner which might satisfy the
most zealous saint ; when the matter is pressed upon them, and
they are made to follow rather than to lead, there may in reality
be but little fault to find with their spirit and expression ; but
when they are left entirely to themselves they neglect to initiate
an argument for the necessity and importance of immediate per-
sonal attention to the claims of the Lord Jesus Christ.
How, then, is all this to be accounted for? The argument
which is derived from a foolish fear of what is called cant has
been already suggested ; but there is another consideration which
ought not to escape attention in determining this subject ; namely,
that in our day gospel and sect have become synonymous terms.
It is upon this ground that many worthy people do feel most
acutely the difficulty and delicacy of their position. Let a man,
for example, in a railway carriage, in a place of business, or in
a scene of social festivity, introduce the subject of religion, and
instantly his hearers will begin to speculate as to what section
of the Christian Church he belongs. The probabilities are that
Psalm cxix. 46.] GUILTY SILENCE. 369
they will at once conclude that he is a Methodist. This, doubt-
less, is a great and well-deserved compliment to our honoured
brethren of the Methodist persuasion. It implies a recognition
of their fervour, zeal, and devotion, which puts to shame the
pretensions of many other Christian bodies. Would that in this
respect all the Lord's people were Methodists. Our reticence
may be our disgrace ; our sealed lips may be a crime, not an
honour.
If those who have felt the power of the gospel will not speak
of it, who will ? The claim of Almighty God upon our best
service is not only emphatic, but indisputable and most solemn.
"Ye are the salt of the earth ; ye are the light of the world; ye
are cities set upon a hill." Everywhere, then, we find responsi-
bility associated with blessing, and if we who know how to do
good do it not, our sin is marked by a double aggravation. If
the believer will not speak of the divine testimony, the unbeliever
will I If there is silence in the Church, there is no silence in
the camp of the enemy ! The devil knows no leisure. All bad
men seem to find rest in toil, and to recruit their energies by
spending all their strength. If, then, the devil goeth about as a
roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, let us, at least, follow
him if we cannot outrun him, and bear witness to the fulness,
freeness, and influence of the grace of God as manifested in
Christ Jesus our Lord,
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
As it is impossible within the available space to go through the
Psalter in detail (a work I earnestly desire to undertake) I have re-
sorted to a method of condensation which finds a place for many
an otherwise excluded passage. This is noted in order to explain
change of plan.
vol.. XII, ?4
PRAYER.
Almighty God, thy meaning concerning us is one of love, though the cloud
is often great and thick, and we cannot see through it. Lord, increase our
faith ! That is the large life, the noble existence, the life that reaches
unto heaven. We would not have our sense-life increased : there is nothing
in it but beginnings : in it there is no satisfaction but that which leads to
still deeper hunger ; but the life of our faith we would have enlarged and
glorified, so that all things may be ours in Christ — all time, all space, all
opportunity for being and doing good, for growing in wisdom, in the
knowledge of the Lord God Almighty, and in the service of all who may
be less favoured than we are. This is our desire ; thou wilt crown it with
an abundant answer, thou wilt seal it with great honour. Thou hast sown
us down here in this low place like seed ; thy meaning is that we should
take root here, and leave the root behind, whilst the golden fruit should
be gathered in the skies. We bless thee for a growing-place, but we want
it only for the root : all the influences of heaven itself must gather around
our head and make the fruitfulness of life a great joy to thyself. Herein
art thou glorified, that thy servants bear much fruit. Give us to feel how
long is the seedtime of God. We have seen nothing else yet. Thou didst
go forth to sow long, long ages since, and thou art sowing still — sowing
men, women, and children all over the land, and thy meaning is that they
should grow up into all heavenly beauty and fruitfulness and be gathered
into the garner of the skies. Alas ! some are fallen by the wayside, and
others in stony places, and others have no deepness of earth, so that they
soon wither away : is there not a remedy in heaven for all this — some great
answer of God to the peculiar circumstances of men ? We will not judge :
we will pray; we will not condemn: we will assist; be this our spirit,
O thou Christ of the Cross, who didst take upon thyself the form of a
servant that thou mightest save the world. Enable us to be quiet, solemn,
thoughtful, in the presence of life's dark mystery. We bless thee for all
fleeting joy, for the transitory lights which make us glad for a moment;
but still when they come and go there is left the eternal mystery — What is
Life ? what is God ? Check our impatience ; displace it by noble reverence
and with the sweet modesty which bows its head and waits in calm tran-
quillity until God's time be come. Meanwhile, we pray for one another
that we be not hindrances to one another, but helps ; that we throw no
cloud upon each other's path, but all possible sunshine and laughter and
true joy. Look upon us in various stages of life. Look upon the old man
and tell him that old age is impossible upon earth to him who is rooted in
God : for the growing days do but bring heaven nearer, and heaven is
CHARA CTER OF GOD AS RE VEALED IN PSALMS. 371
eternal youth. Speak to the busy man whose head is full of schemes and .
plans, who is even now, though in the sanctuary, buying and selling and
getting again, arranging his journey and perfecting his plans; and tell him'
that the whole earth is not worth getting, that having got it he has bound
a burden upon his back, and blinded himself to heavenJT (jive him heart
and hope to win honest bread, and plenty of it ; give him what is needful
for the true nurture and culture of his life, and give him the power of
setting things down as though he did not want them, and setting them
away from him at a long distance, as though he were afraid of their con-
tagion. Thus may he use the world as not abusing it ; thus may he stand
above it, and rule over it, and hold it as God's trustee. Look upon those
to whom life is all crookedness, and darkness, and disappointment ; they
know not why they were born : they see nothing and hear nothing as it
really is ; their life is one succession of mistakes ; their days are but
illuminated nights, they stumble at noonday, and are afraid of that which
is high ; they have no faculty, no sense, no grip of things ; they wander
and look around blindly; they put out their hand, and seize but the empty
air. The Lord pity such ; make of them what can be made of them : it
lies within the scope of thine almightiness to save even such. Bless the
little boys and girls — the sweet flowers of life ; the little things that turn
away attention from those high themes which never can be solved or
adjusted, but whose discussion leads to mental distraction and final melan-
choly. The Lord give grace unto the children ; the Lord save them from
the bitter east winds that blow upon their young souls; the Lord give
them early wisdom, and a long life to enjoy the good beginning. Remember
our sick ones. Many whom thou lovest are sick. They thought to be
well on God's day. They said. Sickness can endure but the poor cold six
days; on God's day we shall be young again and hale, and ready to join
in the public psalm. Keep them; heal them; give them to see that thou
hast yet more than they have yet seized, more than they can ever appro-
priate. Then our loved ones who are far away — beyond the sea, in foreign
lands, in the colonies, on the sea, in trouble on the sea : the Lord's eye
be upon them for good, and the Lord pour down through all the winds
that roll around the earth messages of comfort and love, and send secretly
angels that shall assure the heart that all is well. Give us joy in the
perusal of thy Book; give us some touch of heaven whilst we tarry in
thine house: may thine altar be as thy throne, and through thy Cross, O
Christ, may we see thy crown. Amen.
THE CHAIRACTER OP GOD AS REVEALED IN THE
PSALMS.
I.
WHAT is the conception of God as revealed in the Psalter ?
We hear a great many musical instruments, and voices
of many qualities and tones ; we hear the sea commanded to
roar, and the fulness thereof; and the clouds praise the Most
1^2 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
High as they pour their gentle and gracious rains upon the thirsty
ground. Who is the God to whom all this praise is ascribed ?
We are moved by the enthusiasm of the actors in this great
pageant of song, but whom do they worship ? What is his
name? In order to join their songs intelligently, we should
wish to know the God of the Psalmists and the conception of
his nature formed by those who adore him. Excluding, there-
fore, all the rest of the Bible from our purview, the question we
have to ask is, What is the conception of God as revealed in the
Psalms of David and his fellow-singers ?
The first conception would seem to be concerning the kingli-
ness, the majesty of God. There is a pomp about the expression
that is in harmony with the finest ideas which the human
mind can form respecting royalty. The mind is thus elevated
by the very quality of the thought. There is nothing in all the
conception of God revealed in the Psalter that depresses the mind,
or limits the thought, or chides the efforts and darings of imagina-
tion : on the contrary, everything in the Psalms relating to the
Divine Being says, Stand up in all the fulness of your manhood,
for you are called to worship the Great God, the King above all
gods. Surely no small intellectual benefit accrues from a challenge
like this. Worship is not an easy effort — a mere breathing, a
state of intellectual indifference, a sighing of sentiment, an assent-
ing to propositions which some other men have formed : worship
is a sacrifice — an expression of pain, self-surrender, profound
obeisance, and an assurance that all words are too poor to express
the praise due to the Great King. We are not now asking
whether the conception is right or wrong : our one concern is
to make ourselves clear as to what the conception is. Hear, then,
some such words as these : — " The Lord is king for ever and
ever" (x. i6) ; "The kingdom is the Lord's: and he is the
governor among the nations " (xxii. 28) ; " The Lord of hosts,
he is the King of glory" (xxiv. 10); "The Lord most high is
terrible ; he is a great king over all the earth " (xlvii. 2). The
men who formed these conceptions were not little men ; they
were great men, and they were all on fire ! There was no cold-
ness in the ancient worship as it is revealed in the Psalms : all
was ardour, passion, sacrifice ; every temptation was blown away
CBARA CTER OF GOD AS RE VEALED IN PSALMS, ^n
by the tempest of this noble enthusiasm. Probably this is the
very first idea that ought to be formed respecting God, namely,
that he is a great King — Sovereign — King of kings — Lord of
lords. Not the first idea in the sense of being the elementary
idea, but the very first that challenges and satisfies the imagina-
tion when most inspired and most reverently audacious. We
must have a conception of God that fits the universe. To attach
a small name to so infinite a quantity vi^ould be an irony which
the feeblest mind might despise. What, then, will do for cir-
cumstances which in themselves are so grand — an immeasurable
firmament ; universe beyond universe ; innumerable millions of
worlds whose velocity never can be stated in figures ; white day,
pure light ; starry night ablaze with jewels ; pomp, uniformity,
vastness, minuteness, regularity, fruitfulness ? Who owns it ?
Here we cannot be content with a little or trivial answer ; here
words may be piled without hyperbole; here eloquence may
thunder without approaching the vulgarity of noise. This universe
was never made by a being less than itself — than what it is in
size, bulk, splendour, resource. When, therefore, the Psalmists
come down into the church, saying. Wake the harp, sound the
trumpet, let the sea roar and the fulness thereof! we say, Why ?
— Because we are praising him who made all heaven and earth,
and all that in them is : " He is the King of glory." The answer
satisfies us intellectually. We find no disharmony between a
practically infinite universe and a really infinite Sovereign. We
are not committing ourselves to any theory : we are rather asking
concerning one, and then we are to proceed to consider how far
it fits the facts which are patent to every observer.
Granted, however, that God is King, what are some of the
inferences which flow from this conception of the divine royalty?
The idea is that God is seated upon the circle of the earth ; that
high above all things is the ever-glowing, ever-dazzling Shekinah ;
that God's throne is on the apex of the universe. Granting
that all this is true, what inferences ought to flow from an
appropriation of that spiritual doctrine ? Look at the Psalms
for an answer. We will ask the Psalmists if they were faithful
to their own conception. What did they teach, and to what
responsibilities did they expose themselves by their teaching?
374 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
That is a fair inquiry. By this means we shall discover the
practical effect of the conception of God's nature formed by the
Psalmists. If it end in mere song, however melodious — in
acclaims, however piercing and noble — it will be no concern of
ours to meddle further with its transitory worship ; but if the
conception of God formed by the Psalmists enabled them to hold
life with a kingliness all their own ; if their conception of God
made themselves but a little lower than God, because they were
formed in his image and likeness ; if their conception of God
enabled them to move about all the lines of life with dignity and
intelligence, and beneficence and peacefulness, it ought to be the
concern of a troubled world to know what that conception was,
and to attempt its immediate and perfect realisation. So this
is no barren inquiry in religious archaeology.
One of the first inferences which the Psalmists drew from the
royalty of God was the fact of a complete National Providence —
a divine handling of nations. It is possible to be so critically
minute as only to see the one man, or the individual men, and
not to aggregate them into a new and larger identity, called
society or nationality. It was a singular thing that the Psalmists
seized the idea of confederation, commonwealth, human unity.
They were not content to know that God was the providential
guide of this particular man or that : they brought men together
in their supreme aggregation, and spoke of them as families,
tribes, nations, peoples, kindreds, and tongues. Hear these
words : " He is the governor among the nations " (xxii. 28) ;
"He is terrible to the kings of the earth" (Ixxvi. 12). Here is
statesmanlike grasp of things in the very midst of singing, and
what to some minds would seem to be sentimental worship. A
fearful expression is this, and yet full of gladsomeness when
rightly apprehended — ^" He is terrible to the kings of the earth."
From great men he expects great things : where there are thrones
there should be personal majesty, moral sovereignty, monarchical
grandeur of character. He will plunge the kings of the earth
into deeper depths than common men can ever reach, if they be
not faithful to their stewardship, if they sacrifice to their pre-
sumption and their vanity. But the whole idea of national
providence accrues from this conception. Whole peoples are
CHARA CTER OF GOD AS RE VEALED IN PSALMS, i)^:,
watched. A marvellous mystery this, that there should be per-
sonal government on the part of God, so that each man is treated
as if he were an only child, and yet that there should be national
government on the part of heaven. A beautiful idea, too — a
bringing together of men into a living commonwealth ; a writing
across the forehead of the nations : Ye are not your own ; ye that
are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak ; no man
liveth unto himself. Then, on the other side — namely, the penal
— how awful is the thought as revealed in the Book of Psalms
that God punishes nations in their totality! He locks up the
nations within their own boundaries until they go mad with
exasperation and despair. They say they will burst their bands :
and, lo 1 they are tugging at wrought-iron which they cannot
break ; they will go forth : and, behold ! their caparisoned steeds
fall dead beneath them ; they will blaspheme the Most High, and
take affairs into their own hands : and they stagger, and rot, for
they defied the heavens. The history of nations is before us,
accessible to every intelligent student : see if it be not true that
whole nations have been thus handled, that over the neck of
nations have been thrown invisible reins held by invisible hands.
Following this first thought, the Psalmists were not slow
to recognise the fact of universal judgment as a necessity of
universal kingship : — " Say among the heathen that the Lord
reigneth : the world also shall be established that it shall not be
moved : he shall judge the people righteously " (xcvi. lo). And
again : — " He is the Lord our God : his judgments are in all the
earth" (cv. 7).. This gives a sense of security to things. We
are not living upon a cloud ; we are not condemned to nourish
ourselves upon the foam of the waters : we are called to conceive
of righteousness at the centre of things, righteousness at the head
of things, the spirit of judgment in the whole circle of things.
That is the conception of the sweet singers of Israel, So they
were more than singers : they were philosophers ; and philosophy
is incomplete until it becomes a psalmist, a singer. Truth is but
struggling with its burden until it so far conquers that it must
of necessity sing. Music is the completion of philosophy. We
are called to accept this doctrine of the divine judgments. The
acceptance of it relieves us from the necessity of personal criticism
376 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
in many directions. We are delivered from the exasperation
consequent upon judging one another. We commit our way
unto the Lord. We say : God will judge — why should we
trouble to criticise ? We shall all stand before the judgment-
seat of Christ, and every man shall receive according to the deeds
done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil;
seeing therefore that we are to be judged ourselves, why should
we judge one another? Thus we are enabled to look tranquilly
upon some scenes which otherwise would dispossess us of all
religion and dri'e us wild with ungovernable excitement. What
otherwise could we do in the presence of slavery, oppression,
tyranny, cruelty ? We exclaim against them, but make no
impression ; we plead for the down-trodden, and are answered
with scorn : what refuge is there for us but in the thought that
a great process, requiring long time for its evolution, is being
conducted, and that not a single oppressor, tyrant or cruel heart
can escape without record in heaven ? We are charged to speak
comfortably to those who are prison-bound, in distress, in sorrow
of heart — saying. Sorrow endureth but for a night, joy cometh in
the morning. There is a fearful awakening for the unrighteous,
the untrue, and the unjust ! If you are sure of being right, suffer
on, knowing that Christ also suffered wrongfully ; bear up
bravely, endure patiently : yours will be a short night, and no
sooner will the morning light shine upon you than you shall
forget its darkness, and thank God for its discipline. So out
of these singing philosophies, these musical religions of the
Psalmists' time, there come great thoughts assuring us that,
God being King, he ruleth the nations, and conducts an infinite
economy of a providential kind.
Following this thought of the kingliness of God, we are not
surprised to find that the Psalmists associated with it appro-
priate emotions on the part of the people. The emotions
were not all of one kind. Emotion expresses the character of
the singer or the sufferer. We have these words in proof: —
" The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice " (xcvii. i). Is
that all ? It is a true declaration, and evidently rational, strong
in thought as well as musical in expression ; but is it all ?
No. " The Lord reigneth ; let the people tremble " (xcix. i).
CHARA CTER OF GOD AS RE VEALED IN PSALMS. 1,^7
That is all ! Observe the moral completeness of this emotional
expression. We understand both the texts if we look within
ourselves and trust to the inspiration of our own consciousness.
The response will be according to the quality of the character.
" The Lord reigneth ; let the earth rejoice " — in so far as it has
been obedient, truthful, responsive, keeping its way in the
heavens, for ever singing as it shines concerning the Hand that
made it. " The Lord reigneth ; let the people tremble " — in
so far as they have been untrue, unthankful, vicious, selfish,
degraded, endeavouring to conceal themselves from God, attempt-
ing independence of his providence : for when he cometh he
Cometh to judge the earth. Stripping all this of the poetry of
the immediate occasion, what remains ? A solid truth, a grand
eternal truth, a sweet satisfaction. This is a pillar whose capital
is gold, this a solid column of iron at the head of which is lily-
work. The poetry is but the crown of the reason. " He ruleth
by his power for ever ; his eyes behold the nations : let not the
rebellious exalt themselves" (Ixvi. 7). This is comforting song,
and this is song rising out of doctrine, as the golden grain rises
in answer to the sun out of the solid earth.
Supposing that we really accept the doctrine of the divine
kingship and majesty of God, what ought the effect to be upon
our own selves ? Put the question in this way : We have
perused the Psalms, and we observe how they magnify God as
King and Lord alone ; if we accept this doctrine, how ought we
to prove our acceptance of it in our own life ? We do not want
intellectual assent, but moral consent and affection. One of the
first results will be absolute fearlessness : " Perfect love casteth
out fear." If we really believe in the kingship of God, we shall
be without distress or apprehension : —
"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. There-
fore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the moun-
tains be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the waters thereof roar
and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.
There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the
holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. God is in the midst of her ;
she shall not be moved : God shall help her, and that right early. The
heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved : he uttered his voice, the earth
melted. The Lord of hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge.
Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the
37^ THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth ; he breaketh the
bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder ; he burneth the chariot in the fire.
Be still, and know that I am God : I will be exalted among the heathen,
I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of
Jacob is our refuge " (xlvi.).
Find one black line of fear in all that picture 1 Find one
halting note in all that noble song ! This being our conception,
this should also be our experience. " The beloved of the Lord
shall dwell in safety by him ; and the Lord shall cover him all the
day long, and he shall dwell between his shoulders," is a lesson
which we have seen even in the book of Deuteronomy. This
should be our proof that we have accepted the kingship of God.
To get at us, the enemy must get through the king first : we
dwell in the king's house : we bear the king's bond : our covenant
is sealed with the seal of heaven's court.
Absolute fearlessness will be followed by absolute trust :
''The Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime"
(xlii. 8). "This God is our God for ever and ever : he will be
our guide even unto death " (xlviii. 14). Can the New Testa-
ment go further ? — the arms of God are completely round about
us ; he has given his angels charge concerning us. We should
call this poetry if it were found in a poetry-book, but it is found
in a book which is full of reason, solid thinking, practical
experience ; and a book which justifies its poetry by the very
severity of its actual life. " Comfort one another with these
words." God being king, we will put our trust under the shadow
of his throne. He is a king who takes account of his subjects,
who numbers his jewels, who makes inquest into the economy of
his universe. Let us confidently and lovingly trust in the Lord,
and wait patiently for him. He is worth waiting for. Patience
is a proof of our faith. A faith that has no patience is a tree
that has no fruit — an organ that has no music — a bird that has
no wings; a complete contradiction in terms.
Then, following fearlessness and trust, comes the assurance
of continual support : — " Every beast of the forest is mine, and
the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the
mountains : and the wild beasts of the field are mine. . . . The
CHARA CTER OF GOD AS RE VEALED IN PSALMS. 379
world is mine, and the fulness thereof" (1. 10-12). If every
beast of the forest is the Lord's, will he suffer his children
to die of hunger ? If he owns the cattle upon a thousand hills,
shall his children wander desolate and helpless in the wilder-
ness ? If the world is God's and the fulness thereof, our bread
shall be given us and our water shall not fail. To this high
faith we are called, and it is indeed difficult to obey the vocation.
Why ? Because we are loaded with senses. We have so
many points of contact with the outer and lower world. Our
feet touch the earth, and our wings are not yet strong enough
to beat the air and bear us away to the gate of heaven. Still,
the promise of support is there : — " I have been young, and
now am old ; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his
seed begging bread." If we could live on this divine promise
we should be happy all the day long, blow the wind how it
might, darken the clouds as they please. "Lord, increase our
faith." Are we the sons of a king ? Then we must not crouch
through the earth, but stand up in dignity. The son owes
something to the king: the son represents the sovereign. If the
son is lame, halt, blind, poor, narrow of mind, bigoted in
thought, selfish in sentiment, he is no king's son, he has no
claim to royal descent and association. The son of a king should
be magnanimous : he should take large views ; he should be
benignant even towards human infirmity and sin. See how
Christ lived ! He went in to eat with publicans and sinners,
and turned the feast into a sacrament. He said : " Woman,
neither do I condemn thee : go, and sin no more." He called
one son — "a son of Abraham." The sons of the king should
not be petty critics, small censurers, pedantic judges, forming
disheartening estimates of their fellow-men ; they should look
benignant, there should be a blessing in their smile, there should
be deliverance in their grasp, there should be nobleness in their
whole port and bearing. We cannot profess to be the followers
of a king, and yet degrade that king by servility on our part.
We should be majestic in modesty, noble in trust, magnanimous
in all things, but especially in forgiveness.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, teach us so to number our days that we may apply our
hearts unto wisdom. Thou hast made our days fruitful of suggestion from
heaven, so that we need not stumble if we will but look at thy providence,
and listen to thy law, and make thy book the man of our counsel. Thy
word is a lamp unto our feet : if any man stumble in the darkness, the
responsibility thou hast placed upon himself That is the true light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world. May we comprehend the
light, receive it, reproduce it, enjoy it as heaven's richest gift, and show our-
selves in some degree worthy of it, by causing others to come and rejoice in
its brightness and warmth. Thou hast set our days in an uncertain place ;
we cannot number them ; we cannot say where they will end ; thou hast not
revealed the conclusion ; thou hast said thou art always coming, and our
duty is to wait and watch and serve, that so we may be ready. Thou ridest
forth in the chariot of noonday to take thy children home ; thou dost set
forth on thy journey in the chariot of midnight, and ere the sun be risen thou
hast removed many to the mansions that are above. In such an hour as we
think not the Son of man cometh. Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly ! Thy
coming is emancipation, is rest, is heaven. Blessed are they that die in the
Lord : for they shall rest, they shall enter into peace ; there shall be no more
sin, no night, no pain, no death. Thou hast set our days before us, there-
fore, as so many opportunities, which we are called upon to enjoy, to turn
to fruitful account, that we may know thy will more perfectly, and do thy
bidding more obediently. We thank thee for life, notwithstanding its pain,
its shadows, its disappointments, — yea, notwithstanding it is a daily struggle
with death, and in its most beauteous forms it runs along the valley which
is full of graves. Yet is life a great privilege, a keen joy, a splendid call to
upward behaviour and noble conduct ; a challenge to the self to become
enlarged, ennobled, and glorified. May we receive life in this spirit. When
we are stung by its pains and blighted by its disappointments, may we rest
our little griefs upon the infinite sorrow of the Son of God. We find in the
Cross thine answer to our sin, thy measure of the value of our life, thy
reverence for law. May we look to the Cross, and be lightened ; may we
stand around the Cross, and never leave it, looking towards it with the
eagerness of love, with the expectation of unshaken confidence ; and may
the answers coming from it from day to day comfort us, bless us, and cause
us to magnify thy name in praise. We rejoice to think of the mystery of
thy being, the mystery of thy love, the mystery of the Cross, when our heart
muses, it burns, and we speak with our tongue, and say. Great is the
mystery of godliness— the spirit of eternity — the marvellous meaning of God.
Help us to dwell upon great thoughts until all petty ambitions are destroyed;
help us to remember the greatness and goodness of God, and to revel in
CHAR A CTER OF GOD AS RE VEALED IN" FSA LMS. 38 1
them with religious delight ; then shall the objector have no power against
us, and Satan shall find nothing in our hearts which he can turn to evil
account. Fill us with thy Spirit. Grant unto us such knowledge of thy word
as shall amount to safety and protection invincible at every point of life ;
then shall we grow, and be fruitful, and God shall be pleased, and Christ
shall be satisfied. We commend one another to thy gentle love. Let none
be omitted from thy blessing ; let the oldest feel that he is not beyond the
scope of intercession, and the little one feel that youngest life is precious
untO'the Father. Send messages of comfort to the sick, the distressed, those
who suppose themselves to be abandoned ; and comfort those who are dis-
consolate. The Lord help us to render acceptable worship before him, that
the very oblation we offer may be unto us as an answer to prayer. May the
sacrifice be accepted, may the gift be taken up, may all our life be turned
into sacramental uses; and when the eventide comes and the day closes,
may we, through the blood of the everlasting Covenant, be called to walk
with the saints in white. Amen.
THE CHARACTER OF GOD AS REVEALED IN
THE PSALMS.
IL .
SO far, then, God has been revealed in the Psalms in his
kingly or majestic attributes and qualities. We have
wrondered ; we have been dazzled ; w^e have been satisfied. The
terms which have been applied to God by the Psalmists are
worthy of God, as to their grandeur, nobility ; and by so much
our imagination is satisfied, our reverence is also satisfied with
infinite satisfaction. But are we to pause at the point of majesty?
Is there nothing more ? Is the God of the Psalms buf an infinite
Light, an infinite King, far away, enthroned, and if looking on at
all, looking on with indifference if not contempt ? We cannot be
satisfied with God as a King ; and yet we could not be satisfied
if God were less than monarch. Now something must be added ;
other features must be disclosed if they exist, for we soon tire
in looking upon majesty, and mere grandeur, of an abstract kind,
that never touches us with a friendly hand, or beams upon us
with a complacent smile.
What further, then, have the Psalmists to say of God ? Truly,
they magnify his goodness : " Thy marvellous lovingkindness "
(xvii. 7) is one expression which they use ; " The earth is full of
the goodness of the Lord" (xxxiii. 5); "O taste and see that
the Lord is good" (xxxiv. 8); "Truly God is good to Israel"
382 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
(Ixxiii. i); "Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of
my life " (xxiii. 6). How the tone changes I We have just
heard the great trumpets and the infinite thunderings cele-
brating the majesty of God : now, with softer tones, with the
music of the heart, with the pathos of love, the same great
singers sing of the goodness of God. If good, what then ? Draw
near to him. Have no fear. He does not wish to be worshipped
afar off; he desires us to come quite close to him, to whisper
to him, as if in confidential interview — to " rest in the Lord ; "
to recline, as it were, our heads upon his bc?som, and there weep
out our penitence, there tell the tale of our sin, that we may be
interrupted and stopped for ever by the assurances of his mercy.
So we have two aspects of God : the great King, and the gentle
and good one. If good, continually trust the outcome of things.
With intermediate points and developments we have next to
nothing to do. Things do look crooked, unmanageable, confused,
quite tumultuous indeed, as if disorder had displaced the spirit
of harmony, and terror ruled over all. The Christian fixes his
attention upon the last outcome. He says : All things work
together for good, but during the working together they are not
to be analysed or subjected to torture : they are to be simply
waited for, and watched, and prayed over, and nothing is to be
done in a spirit of disobedience, which would imperil the final
grace and harmony. At that point we stand still. We hear the
mocker, and acknowledge that if in this life only we have hope,
there is point in many of his gibes, and his brutality is not ill-
displayed in reference to things which look like cross-providences
and miscarriages of divine justice; for when the wicked reign,
and the unrighteous are rich, and all things seem to be given
over to the cruel and strong man, there is some superficial reason
for mocking and taunting those who pray. If good, be like him.
The worshipper should always be like his God, and must be in
proportion as his worship is sincere, intelligent, complete. We
grow like what we love. We become similar to that which we
worship. The idolater is like his idol. Find any tribe wor-
shipping an ugly or deformed or ghastly image of deity, and
you find the worshippers like that which they adore. But if
good, we are to be good — good in every sense : in the moral
and spiritual sense, which relates to character, spirituality of
CHARA CTER OF GOD AS RE VEALED IN PSALMS. 383
mind, and the general uplifting and coronation of all the faculties,
but good also in the other sense, of beneficence, — that is to say;
in the sense of kindheartedness, compassion, pity, gentleness,
regard for the weal, solicitude about those who have gone astray :
this is goodness. We are not to be satisfied with an inward
goodness, which is mistakenly so called — a kind of abstract
quality ; but that which is within is to be translated into beautiful
action, beneficent service, the kindness which kills enemies, the
love which overcomes opposition.
So far, then, God is good as well as great, and our song shall
be of mercy and judgment. In the Psalms God is revealed in
many gracious aspects. In particular he is called by two names,
« which must always endear him to human nature in its best moods
and its deepest necessities. " The Lord is my Shepherd "
(xxiii. i). That is one of the names. Then "Like as a father"
(ciii. 13). That is the other name. The Psalmists have dis-
covered that not only is God a great King above all gods, but
that he is Shepherd and Father. How did such ideas occur to
the minds of Israel's poets ? But do we not limit the terms, and
really dispossess ourselves of many spiritual advantages, by not
fully considering the meaning of such words as " Shepherd,"
and " Father " ? They are not altogether sentimental terms.
Has a shepherd a mqre office to fulfil ? Does he watch the flock
from an hour that is given to an hour that is specified, and is he
paid for his services ? Is his watchfulness bought ? Is his
kindness the arithmetical result of a calculation ? Is he not
stern as well as good, — nay, is he not sometimes severe simply
because he is good ? And a " father " — is he one who exercises
no discipline? Is he made simply to give every child his own
way? and does he retain the name of father without fulfilling
the functions thereby designated, and discharge the sometimes
heavy duties thereby implied ? Is a father all smiles ? Is there
no rod in the house ? Is there no tone of rebuke in all the
paternal administration ? There may be no rod, there may be
no judgment, there may be no rebuke, there may be no criticism ;
but if so the man is no father : he does but sustain certain
physical relations to his offspring ; their father he is not. So
these terms must be -taken in their fullest signification. We
384 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
must banish that which is merely sentimental, and get at that
which is real, substantial, and abiding. Thus God is described
in tender and endearing terms. The pastures into which he
leads his flock are " green pastures ; " the waters by which he
conducts his flock are waters of comfort — " still waters." He
maketh his flock to lie down at noon, saying, The sun is too hot
for the sheep and the lambs ; they must be taken where the
shadow abides that within its coolness they may rest awhile.
What view did the Psalmists take of God's relation to this
world ? Is he an absentee owner ? Is he never here ? Has
he but left some writing, signed regally, sealed solemnly, but is
he himself never present ? What is his relation to this earth ? —
active, contemplative, disdainful, complacent ? What is it accord-
ing to the conception of the Psalmists ? Hear their own words :
"God is in the generation of the righteous" (xiv. 5). He
knows every link and loop in the living chain ; nothing is added
but by his permission, nothing is taken away that he does not
know of. "Thou wilt save the afflicted peojSle " (xviii. 27).
This brings him very near to every one of us : though a king, he
is a physician ; though mighty, he can walk into the places where
sorrow weeps, where weakness throbs out its last little energy,
where pain waits dumbly some solution or mitigation of its agony.
" O love the Lord, all ye his saints : for the Lord preserveth the
faithful " (xxxi. 23). So he is not absent, but present ; he is the
active force now ruling all things — now drying the tears of grief,
now standing by the banner of the true. "The eyes of the Lord
are upon the righteous, and his ears are open unto their cry."
So God is not a king only, seated immeasurably beyond the
x-each of his creatures, enthroned in pomp and state and circum-
stance, and unmindful of the little, the perishing, the feeble, and
those who but dimly represent himself. He identifies himself
with them ; he looks upon no other object ; he listens to the
prayer of the earth, the continual intercession of pain and weak-
ness and helplessness. Observe, we are simply dwelling now
upon the conception of God formed by the Psalmists ; whether
we can verify that idea or not, is not the immediate question;
flrst of all, let us get hold of the conception itself, and thglj
CHARA CTER OF GOD AS RE VEALED IN PSALMS. 385
address ourselves as to its value and application to our own
conditions.
"The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble ; the Lord will
preserve him, and keep him alive ; and he shall be blessed upon
the earth : and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his
enemies " (xli. i, 2). This reads like the testimony of men
who were eye-witnesses. There is nothing abstract about such
a deliverance. One would say, judging from the tone, that the
men who said all this were only repeating what they themselves
had experienced. On such ground men have a right to be heard.
We may be impatient in listening to mere opinion, surmise, or
declaration ; but when men arise to say they will tell us their
own religious experience, and certify the same by their personal
signature, they have a right to be heard — the right which fact
always has in human history. We want to hear what Fact has
to say : what has really been done ; who testifies. Let every
speaker be heard in his own personality and in his own name,
and let him sign his testimony in the presence of witnesses.
This is precisely what is done throughout the whole Bible. Mea
do not come with dreams and visions and new fancies, but with
autobiography, personal experience, facts which they have seen,
felt, known, and handled. " Call upon me in the day of trouble :
I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me" (1. 15); "From
heaven did the Lord behold the earth ; to hear the groaning of the
prisoner; to loose those that are appointed to death" (cii. 19).
Again we see how true it is that the Psalmists did not think of
God in any merely regal capacity. He was also father, shepherd,
mother, nurse, physician, visitor, friend : nearer to men than
men were to themselves, — the very mystery of life.
Taking this conception into view, what then ? Evidently, fi:rst,
life is watched. There is nothing too minute for God to see.
"His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men" (xi. 4) ;
" Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising " (cxxxix. 2).
There is not a word in my tongue, there is not a thought in my
heart, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. We asked :
What is God's relation to this world ? This is the tender and
solemn reply : a relation of watchfulness, criticism, care, judg-
ment. And then, secondly, because life is watched we are
VOL. XII. 25
386 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
entitled to infer that life is precious. The Lord would not watch
that which is of no value. Even a sparrow falleth not to the
ground without God. The reasoning of Christ is an upward and
cumulative reasoning : he says, If God so clothe the grass of the
field, will he not much more clothe you ? If a sparrow cannot
fall to the ground without your Father, can a man die without
heaven taking notice of the event ? Christ always reasons so.
If he can get us to admit that God cares for bird, or flower, or
little thing, he carries up the admission to its fullest extent, and
binds us to accept a theology of Providence, and to assent to the
doctrine that God rules over all, and his tender morcy is over all
his works. We cannot tell the preciousness of one life. " Whoso
shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were
better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and
that he were drowned in the depth of the sea." " Inasmuch as
y6 have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye
have done it unto me." Nowhere in the Psalms, or in any other
part of the Bible, is human life spoken of in a tone of dis-
paragement, or disdain, or disregard ; the whole tone in relation
to man is that the sinner must be saved, though he be but one
in number. " If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them
be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth
into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?"
Even so the Shepherd of men has come to seek the wanderer, and
restore the prodigal to his Father's love. Not only is life watched,
and precious because watched, but life is evidently under training.
It is not to be judged within the limits of any one day or any one
generation. It will grow, it will be refined, little by little ; some-
times almost imperceptibly, so far as the immediate sequence of
moments can detect, but given days and months and years, and
the progress of the refinement will be very definite. God is now
creating man, and making man in his own image. We shall
dispossess ourselves of great spiritual riches if we limit the
creation of man to any one point of time : it is the one concern
of time ; it is the one business of the ages. We are now, there-
fore, being chastened, impoverished, that we may be enriched,
untaught that we may be taught, rebuked that we may obey.
The whole process of life is probationary, educational, helpful.
Judge not yourselves or others by any single day.
CHAR A CTER OF GOD AS RE VEALED IN PSALMS. 387
Gathering all these passages into one view, how do they
impress us ? We cannot but be impressed with the noble com-
pleteness of the conception. There is nothing wanting. Say we
are in a high mood of intellectual enthusiasm, imagination alive,
burning, and the whole mental structure is excited to its highest
intensity : then the Psalmists meet us and satisfy us by the
grandeur of their spiritual words. When they have finished
they ask us to find one word indicative of grandeur, majesty, and
true pomp, which they have not first discovered and applied. Or,
say, we are broken-hearted, blind with tears, sitting in the dark-
ness of despair, and the Psalmists come to us with whisperings
that are as balms, with sentiments which are medicinal, with
words which soothe without ever becoming burdensome, with
figures which quicken our fancy, and make it a broad open gate
through which judgment comes to reap a harvest of rational and
glorious consolation. Where can we go for tender terms if not
to a Psalm like the 103rd, where God does everything for man
that man can need in his lowest and weakest estate, restoring,
comforting, forgiving, chastening, soothing, removing iniquities
away as far as the east is from the west ? Where else is
God represented as numbering our days, and remembering what
we are, and pitying us after great sins ? Where but in the
107th Psalm does God come back after every apostasy with
a new redemption, giving us hope in the night-time, and an
opportunity even in the densest darkness to return and be
restored ? Now this noble completeness of the conception be-
gins an argument : how did such men at such a time acquire
such a conception of God ? It is impossible to believe that
the singers were not inspired. This is God's revelation of
himself. There is no other revelation like it in all the sacred
books of the world. In other sacred books we can find pomp
of expression, and some reference to possible pity — but the
reference is very small and indistinct ; nowhere do we find
this conception on the same lines, of the same magnitude,
the same clearness, of the same reverent audacity. What
other religion but the religion of the Bible could describe its
God as Shepherd, Father, Healer, Nurse ? It is, therefore,
simply impossible to some to believe that the Psalmists con-
ceived their God, having regard to the completeness of the
388 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
conception, its boldness and fulness and satisfactoriness. Thus
the Bible must become its own witness evermore. If any man
can improve this conception of God, let him do so. He has yet
to do it. Even Christ and the Apostles when they come will
work on the same lines, recognise the same God, and but add
some point of illumination ; they will never utter a word sweeter
than '* Shepherd," tenderer than " Father," nor can they make a
word fuller in sacred meaning than " lovingkindness " or " tender
mercy."
Nor are we less impressed with the adaptation of this concep-
tion to universal conditions. This God is not confined to the
Psalms, nor is the Bible God confined to Hebrew or other
eastern lands. How did the people of one nation conceive a God
for all nations? All the nations accept these designations and
attributes and relations, and never attempt to change one of
them. The Psalms deal with universal conditions when they
deal with the poor, the oppressed, the weary, the troubled, the
persecuted. This universality of the conception is a conclusive
argument in favour of its divine origin. Not a word of limitation
can be found here ; there is no hint that other nations must make
gods for themselves if they want them ; there is no suggestion
that this is the God of the Jew or the Hebrew, or the God of Israel
only : he is universal as the sun, he is as impartial as the rain ;
the figures by which he is represented to the race are all figures
which every child can see and every man can partially under-
stand. He is the God of the whole earth, the God reigning over
all people, the God saving all nations. It is something to have
such a conception, and something to be able to say that after all
literature, history, education; experience, we can add nothing to
it : the pillar bears a capital which none can heighten and none
can glorify. When we are in our noblest rnoods of mind we
take most easily to the biblical expression of our thought; when
we are in greatest need of succour, no words can so precisely
express our pain and want as words which are found in the
sacred volume. For these reasons, in addition to many others,
we believe the Psalms to have been first sung in heaven, and the
whole Bible to be not the word or work of man, but the revela-
tion and writing and testimony of the living God.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, one look from thine eye will be as morning to us and as the
beginning of heaven. Thou wilt not withhold that look of kindness from us,
seeing we are before thee in the name of Jesus Christ thy Son, and that for
his sake alone we beg the giving of every favour. Our hope is in the Cross.
We dare not pray in our own name, or ply thee with arguments of our own
making, for the3f would but aggravate the sin we cannot obliterate ; but we
will point to the Cross, we will stand before thy Son our Saviour, we will
interpret the meaning of his flowing blood, and we know that from him we
shall receive all things good for us in this life and in all the worlds to come.
He is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. We live in him our
new life ; we breathe eternally because of his eternity. We bless thee for
thine house : it is a sure resting-place, a window from which we can see
heaven, a height standing on which we can overhear sweet music from other
worlds. Meet us at the altar, and let the rising of our song unto thee be a
challenge to which thou wilt reply with further revelation of love. Thou
hast been mindful of us with infinite tenderness. We have heard of thine
anger, but whilst we have been listening to the marvellous revelation of thy
wrath, we have also heard that it is but for a moment. We have heard
of thy mercy, whilst we have been amazed at thy tenderness : behold, all
the houses of history have said. His mercy endureth for ever. Thus we are
made glad ; yea, we are made astonished with an infinite astonishment,
because our God is pitiful, his eyes are full of tears, his heart melts with
tenderness ; he lifts the thunder to let it drop again, lest the poor victim,,
the criminal before him, should be crushed never to rise again. Thy way is
full of wonder. Nothing occurs as we expected it to happen. We look in
this direction for light, and behold it is flaming behind us, coming from a
quarter unexpected and uncalculated by our perverted minds. We say, The
Lord will do this ; and behold whilst we are shaping out a way for thee
thou art walking upon the wings of the wind, and the clouds are the dust of
thy feet ; thy way is in the whirlwind, and thy place of rest is in the taber-
nacles of thunder. Who can understand thy way ? Who can comprehend
thy meaning ? Who shall say, This is the Lord, and this is not ? Thy
chariots are twenty thousand, and all calculation is baffled by the movements
of God. We will stand still ; we will close our lips in reverent silence; we
will say in our heart, whispering the sweet Gospel to ourselves, lest we
should lose its music by loud utterance, The Lord will come; yea, he will
come quickly, and thousands of his angels will come with him ; then the
crooked shall be made straight, and the high places shall be made low, and
that which is lacking shall be numbered. The first shall be last, and the
last shall be first. We bless thee for thy Book — a Book without beginning
and without end ; high as the firmament, inaccessible yet radiant as the
390
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
I
morning horizon. Help us to read it with clear eyes, to receive it into
honest hearts, and to embody it in obedient lives. A wondrous Book
having in it all light, all truth, all wisdom ; a marvellous Book, a golden
gate falling back upon all heaven, admitting us into the city, and giving us to
know what they are doing there who have gone before and have been robed
in the white linen of the saints. We pray for one another. We are always
within a touch of death. There is but a step between us and the end,
wherever we may be on the journey. We give thee thanks for all safe
deliverance and all protection, and for all the success with which thou hast
crowned our labours. Thou hast been with us in our going out and in our
coming in again, and there has not been a day which has not been
brightened by thy presence, nor a night that has not been sealed with the
blessing of thy sleep. We, therefore, praise thee, and hail one another in
the name of the Lord, and say. It is well with those with whom the Lord is
well pleased. Thou hast delivered us from terrors by night and by day,
from perils on the land, and from perils on the sea, and we know not from -
what perils until we see others involved in their tremendous dangers. The
Lord bless the house, the family gathering-place and sleeping-place, the
sweet home where the fire is the fireside of hospitality, securit}', afifection ;
the Lord grant that the house may become a home, and the home a church,
and the church be just outside heaven's own gate. As for those who are
troubled and perplexed, dashed back in life when they meant to go forward,
give such the true view of life : show them the falseness of all earthly calcu-
lations ; show them that not a fountain plays on all the earth whose waters
will not be drained oif; and show them also that the living fountain is
in the heavens, and say unto them : Blessed are they that hunger and thirst
after righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Sanctify our afflictions, sanctify
our disappointments, turn to uses of spiritual health all the things which we
supposed to be against us. If any man is looking round, and seeing the
enemy gathering around him a thousand strong, say unto him : When a
man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace
with him. Thus may we live and move and have our being in God, and
rest in the nest of the divine love, and abide constantly in the sanctuary of
the divine protection. Amen.
DIVINE PROVIDENCE AS REVEALED IN THE
PSALMS.*
WE have inquired what relation the God of the Psalms is
pleased to sustain towards the affairs of men. We have
endeavoured to answer the question — Was it contemplative, in-
different, disdainful ? Or active, complacent, redemptive ? We
have now to enlarge the inquiry, and ask, What was the concep-
tion of divine providence held by the Psalmists, and how did it
sustain, inspire, and comfort them in their manifold and anxious
* See also in relation to the doctrine of Providence, ante, p 205.
DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN THE PSALMS. 391
experience ? The providence which is revealed in the Psalms is
a providence marked by fulness of mystery. The cloud was as
dark as midnight. We read, " Thy judgments are far above out
of sight" (x. 5). The men were standing, as it were, looking
upward strainingly, as if by stretching their stature they could
reach unto God, as if by fixing their eyes attentively upon heaven
they might at least discover the footholds of the throne. But
nothing came of all the straining, except the assurance that God's
judgments were out of sight, far beyond the line accessible to
human vision. Then again we read, "Clouds and darkness are
round about him " (xcvii. 2). That is discouraging. How does
that experience correspond with our own ? It so far corresponds
that we would not change the utterance in a solitary tone. Even
now when we want to describe our view of God's rule of this
world, we cannot find truer or nobler terms than these, " Clouds
and darkness are round about him." Language is thousands of
years older now than it was at the time in which the psalms were
sung. Learning has grown upon every hand ; the power of ex-
pression has been carried to its very highest point ; and now
even in its maturity and perfection language is only too thank-
ful to borrow the sublime strains of the Hebrew song, and to say
concerning God, " Clouds and darkness are round about him."
All this is natural. The other view would have been altogether
untenable. A God that could be comprehended would not have
satisfied every faculty of the mind. Nay, a God who could have
been measured, comprehended, and understood, would have gone
down from that point, and have gradually sunk into moral con-
tempt. His way would be patent ; all his reasons would be
upon the surface ; the lightest-minded person could have said.
We know what he will do to-morrow, and we read his plan down
to the very last line and tittle ; so now we can take our own
course, and fit in our ways where we please, and depart from
the line providential where we like. But God cannot be antici-
pated. We know not what he will do on the morrow. That
mysterious point of time is under the divine control ; within the
scope of that to-morrow God has dug so many graves, turned
back so many ambitions, inflicted so many disappointments, and
sent out so many consolations, and adjusted so many contro-
versies, and has not communicated the secret to any finite
392 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
intelligence. Here, then, comes up all that is best in ■worship.
Here reverence takes its stand, and, uncovered, awaits before
God to know what is the next thing to be done, and asks for
power to accomplish it. This is not only natural, but it is widely
and profoundly educational. We are trained by a right use of
our ignorance, and a right realisation of the boundaries which
enclose us. At first we suppose there are no stakes or cords but
that our dwelling-place is boundless ; then we begin to find that
we are shut in, that beyond a certain point we cannot advance a
solitary step, that our boasted liberty is only a liberty to obey.
That is the beginning of the soul's deepest education. The
soul comes back from its survey, which it supposed to be bound-
less, and says in effect, Seeing that I am not gifted with infinite
and uncontrolled liberty, amounting to irresponsibility, let me
quietly consider what is my position, what am I, what forces
have I at my disposal, what is my limit, and in how far, and
according to what quality have I to answer at the last for the
little day I spend under the sun. Thus, too, patience is trained.
Nothing refines the soul so much as the exercise of willing,
uncomplaining, rejoicing patience — to be prepared that to-morrow
should be as monotonous as to-day, and to know that for the
next year there will be no change in our solitariness and weakness,
but that we shall still be living under the same grey sky, and
be blown upon by the same cold cruel wind ; and yet to say.
Seeing this is God's doing, it is best ; he will turn this pain to
sacramental uses ; we will make this weariness an opportunity
for deepening our spiritual knowledge, and encouraging and sus-
taining our spiritual vitality. Thus, too, faith grows : not to
know God, and yet to believe God ; to have no information
extending beyond the immediate moment, and yet to be sure
that all will be right at the last, is to grow in faith, to be solid at
the centre, to be sound at the core. The larger view is always
the right one. Within given limits, we think we are talking
according to the suggestion of facts, whilst all the time we are
misinterpreting the very facts which we suppose ourselves to
know. Once let that assurance take possession of the heart, and
at once the whole life becomes chastened, and the whole spirit
puts on the beauty of modesty. We see nothing as it really is.
Again and again we have had occasion to say, Seeing may be
DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN THE PSALMS. 393
believing, but what is seeing ? We play fast and loose with the
terms on which we build great theories. We know as little
about seeing as we know about believing. No man sees. He can
but discover appearances, and he looks upon them even imper-
fectly, and the things which he dignifies by the name of facts
will play him false to-morrow — vanish as fictions ; the only right
spirit, therefore, in relation to divine providence is to acknow-
ledge the mystery, to bow before it, to wait patiently for God.
What does the child say about the snow ? The child thinks that
the snow steals a march upon the sun, and that if the sun would
but shine in all his heat there would be no snow. The child is
right within given limits, and yet if the sun were diminished in
heat we should have no Alpine snow, no great glacier-ribs of ice
that seem to make the very earth cold at the heart. These
great ice -formations are creations of the sun : diminish his heat,
and you destroy these fields of ice. The sun's heat is the mystery
of all things. Diminish it, and you shut out the distillery of
creation, and that which you never imagined possible will prove
itself to be the unwelcome and ghastly fact.
But not only was providence covered with what may be termed
intellectual mystery, puzzling and bewildering the understanding
and the imagination, — providence as known by the Psalmists
was full of moral perplexity. That was the great difficulty.
Men can put up with intellectual riddles, but when they fancy
they see conscience and right outraged they almost cease to pray.
" My feet were almost gone ; my steps had well nigh slipped. For I was
envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there
are no bands in their death : but their strength is firm. They are not in
trouble as other men ; neither are they plagued like other men. Therefore
pride compasseth them about as a chain ; violence covereth them as a
garment. Their eyes stand out with .fatness : they have more than heart
could wish " (Ixxiii. 2-7).
So long as the mystery was intellectual, it was rather matter of
entertainment than otherwise : for who does not like some kind
of metaphysical puzzle that he can trifle with, and speculate upon,
and put in various lights, so as to enchain the attention and
entrance the imagination of other men ? But the intellectual has
become moral : now it seems as if vice were patronised of heaven.
3^4 ^^^ PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
and virtue discouraged, as though wickedness were the one way
to the divine complacency. What wonder if Asaph's feet were
almost gone ? Asaph says : I saw it ; this is not a matter I have
heard about, nor especially is it a matter concerning which there
are conflicting rumours ; I have seen the eyes of the wicked, and
they stand out with fatness ; I have gone over their estates, and
they are marked by redundant luxuries ; this is patent ; I would
not have thrown away my harp if I had only heard by way of
rumour that some wicked man was rich and well, but I have seen
it, and now my harp-strings have lost their tension, and these
poor fingers that used to play with such skill and verve fall
palsied by my side. That is so. Here again, within given limits,
the case is precisely as Asaph saw it and as Asaph wrote it.
But beware ! what have you seen? Tell me under what circum-
stances this tragedy, or that, occurred. You reply : The sun was
immediately overhead when the tragedy happened. I say — No ;
the sun is never overhead in England. But I saw it. Never !
Do you mean to tell me that the sun is not immediately overhead
at a certain moment of the day ? I do ; the sun cannot be over-
head directly in England, or anywhere, but at one line, and at
two assignable points measured from that line. Then have I to
disbelieve my own eyes ? Yes — instantly ! Would God you
were blind on some occasions, for then would you see ! Let me
hold imaginatively before you a beam of light. Do you see it ?
Yes. I can deliver that beam to you in two parcels : I can sift
or filter it so as to send the light without the heat, and in a more
imperfect manner, but a manner which may presently be matured ;
I can send the heat, as it were, by another parcels' delivery. Have
you seen it done ? You have never seen it done, but that does
not prove that it is not done. Again and again we have seen
that it is impossible for all the boiling water in creation to clean
a vessel. You have scalded the vessel, but you have not cleaned
it ; you have made it clean enough for practical purposes, but no
chemist could use it. It is one thing to be mechanically clean,
and another to be chemically pure. In science we call these
"fine distinctions," but when the great moralists and apostles
stand up and say, You can wash the hands but you cannot wash
the heart : " Ye must be born again," we call it " fanaticism " or
" rhapsody." We must not, therefore, judge too much by appear-
Divine providence in the psalms. 395
ances. Asaph did not occupy the right point of view. He him-
self says so : for when he went into the sanctuary of God, he
understood the end of the wicked ; then he took back his harp,
and never played it as he did the moment after he saw the
real situation of the ungodly. But we might take this in another
point of view. Why not say when the wicked are in great
prosperity. Surely their wickedness is not so great as I imagined
it to be. Or : Surely my goodness is not so certain as I once
thought it was. Who betakes himself to that line of searching
criticism ? Who does not find it easier and more convenient to
say that he is right, and that if any one prospers who is not of
his opinions or policy of conduct, that prosperous man is an alien
and an infidel ?
Out of this two-fold mysteriousness of providence there would
almost necessarily come a provocation of the worst spirit of
criticism. As a matter of fact this provocation did take place in
the Psalmists ; so one of them exclaims, " Wherefore hast thou
made all men in vain ? " (Ixxxix. 47.) Think of it ! That a man
who cannot tell what will be on the morrow should thus criticise
and challenge the divine scheme ! Hov/ difficult to suppress
oneself, and to divest oneself of unavowed but not wholly uncon-
scious infallibility ! Every man is a pope. Every man believes
himself practically to be infallible. It may be an easy protestan-
tism that fulminates against a distant dignity but forgets that the
human heart is papal, and that to be a man is to be a pope.
Another Psalmist says, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in
vain" (Ixxiii. 13). Think of it ! A man so reading the facts ot
creation and human history as to suppose that his personal hand-
washing is of the slightest consequence in the universe 1 " I have
become Pharisee for nothing ; I might have been eating and
drinking with the publicans to-night to my heart's content ; and,
lo, I have got nothing in exchange for the soap and the nitre I
have expended in cleansing my hands ! " A man who can so
talk about his hands has never cleansed them ; he has performed
a mechanical ablution, but the true catharism he has never
undergone.
Now the tone changes, and providence is represented in the
next place as sovereign and final. Hear the truth, " He putteth
396 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
down one, and setteth up another" (Ixxv. 7) ; "Surely the wrath
of man shall praise thee : the remainder of wrath shalt thou
restrain " (Ixxvi. 10) ; " He raiseth up the poor out of the dust,
and lifteth the needy out of the dunghill ; that he may set him
with princes, even with the princes of his people " (cxiii. 7, 8)
This is the right tone : God handling the universe with imperial
power ; God making disposition of angels and men as it pleaseth
him ; God fixing the bounds of our habitation, and drawing the
line within which the foam of our fury dies in pallid weakness.
God is thus put in his right position as King. " The Lord
reigneth." This quiets us also in the presence of elevations
which might distress us. Why should any man be superior
to me ? Why should not I stand first in the ranks, and be
admitted first to see the king ? and why should not others
hear of the king through me ? Why should I be poor and my
rival rich ? We started together ; nay, we were children of the
same mother, and behold he is wealthy and famous, and looked
up to and will be renowned for many a day, and I have no lot
or portion or inheritance in the land. Thus speaks the spirit
of fretfulness, discontent, and peevishness. But let a man say
in his soul, " God putteth down one, and setteth up another ;
God raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and setteth among
princes, even amongst the princes of his people, whom he will ;
to live is honour enough for me, to be permitted to pray is next
to being permitted to sing with the angels ; even I, poor, dis-
dained, have some lot in this great estate." " O rest in the Lord,
and wait patiently for him." We cannot amend the sentences
concerning Providence which are found in the Psalms. To-day
men live by their proclamation. To-day singers make their
fortunes by singing the ideas of Hebrew poetry. The words of
the Psalmists in describing God's ways are words which breathe
through all the ages, and cannot be displaced by the invention of
mai;i. So, amid all difficulties, contradictions ; amid all mysteries*
intellectual, spiritual, moral, we will pray for patience, love, faith ;
we will ask that we may be enabled to wait until the time of
solution; we will trust in the living God, which stilleth the
noise of the seas, the noise of their waves and the tumult of the
people. This is Christian obedience. Anything other than this
is impertinence, — yea, is blasphemy.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, we come on the Sabbath day that we may be healed. It
is the heaHng day. It is made sacred to heaHng. We come on no other
day: for this is the day the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in
it. Redeem us from our iniquities, heal our diseases, and let our backsliding
be for ever forgotten. We would that this day might be memorable because
of the healing we receive from heaven. Send none unhealed away; we
rejoice in thy name, O living Christ, as the healer of men. Thou art the
great Physician ; thou knowest our frame, thou rememberest that we are dust ;
there is nothing in us that thou didst not thyself set in its place and in its
order : grant unto us, then, thy healing grace, O thou loving Saviour of the
world. We cannot heal ourselves, though we are self-destroyed : it is easy
to work out destruction, but in the Lord alone is salvation. When there
was no eye to pity, when there was no arm to save, thine own eye pitied, and
thine own arm brought salvation. This is the day on which we hear these
things, — the day of heaven's own light and heaven's own music ; we will
answer the dawn, and spring in glad response to the music, and will be
found in the house of the Lord with a new song upon our lips. Great is
thy goodness, tender is thy mercy, and as for thy lovingkindness we know
not how to express it : it is higher than heaven, wider than all space. We
have come to hear the living Word, which is as the bread of life and the
water sent down from heaven for the satisfaction of men's burning thirst.
Give us the hearing ear, the understanding heart, and the obedient will;
then shall thy word run, have free course, and be magnified, and all people
shall rejoice as those who have been long in darkness, but have now seen
the rising of a great light. All our necessities are known to thee : some
are too deep for words ; others may not be expressed, for we could not
ourselves bear the utterance of them ; but all we need thou knowest, for
thou dost not only hear our speech, thou readest the motions of our heart :
they are toward thyself, they beat heavenward, they are motions of aspira-
tion, and they are significant of trust and love and hope; answer them as
thou alone canst answer with all the benevolence and all the tenderness oi
^the Cross. Our life is made up of days that are few and evil ; our days are
swifter than a post, our life is swifter than a weaver's shuttle, flying to and
fro, working out its web of thought and purpose and meaning. We are
hardly young until, behold, age is advancing upon us ; whilst talking of to-
day, to-morrow is giving promise of its coming. We bless thec" therefore.
398 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
for all that fills up the void, and makes the little great, and turns the in-
significant into sublimity. This is done by thy gospel; this is the miracle of
the Christian's faith. May we find that the water of this life is turned into
the wine of the next, that all common things are now invested with
uncommon and celestial meaning. Come into our hearts as we are able to
receive thee. Plead not against us with thy great power ; let our weakness
be an attraction to thee ; let our very poverty draw thee closely to our
souls : then shall we know thee as the good Lord, and the Giver of Good,
the Father of Lights, and the Fountain of Blessings. Regard with special love
those who are in great sorrow, loss, pain, extremity, and with still added
tenderness regard those who are leaving the world — some sorrowfully, some
joyfully, some eagerly, because they would be away joining the sons of light
and the children of song in the land that is all summer. The Lord grant
unto all who wait upon the sick and the weary, patience, a hopeful
spirit, a tender heart, facility in loving invention, that they may double their
attention by the fertility of their care and industry. The Lord bless the
nations of the earth : they are all thine, all equally thine ; and if we are still
narrow enough to pray for one land we would pray for our own : but thou
hast taught us that the earth is thine, that all the nations belong to one
another because they belong to Christ. Enable us, therefore, to rest in
providence, to trust in the great sovereignty of God, in the lofty and eternal
rule of Christ ; then we shall be at rest, though the mountains tremble and
the seas would empty themselves out of their channels because of their
tumult. Enable us to stand fast in the eternal truth that the Lord reigneth.
And as for those who are playing with empires and nations, and turning
greatest human questions their own way, this or that : the Lord grant unto
us all the wisdom of patience, the confidence of great principles, assured
that, let man do what he may, or leave undone what he will, the universe is
under God's keeping, and will be shaped according to God's thought. The
Lord hear us when we pray. May our pra3'ers grow upon us until they
become as replies ; may our hearts feel their hunger, and utter it, until the
very utterance of their desire shall itself become a satisfaction. Wash us in
the precious blood shed before the foundation of the world — the mysterious
blood, the everlasting sacrifice, the all-blessing and all-cleansing blood of
Christ ; then shall we be accepted in the Beloved, here we shall be free men,
and presently we shall be as the angels of God. Amen.
THE DESTINY OP THE WICKED AS REVEALED
IN THE PSALMS.
WE do not expect to hear much about the wicked in the
book of music. The subject would seem to be out of
place amid the utterance of praise and thanksgiving and adora-
tion. We may be the more affected in consequence of the
very surprise which is excited by the presence of so repelling
g subject under circumstances otherwise so fascinating and
DESTINY OF THE WICKED, 399
attractive. We are taught by contrasts. God uses the element
of surprise in our education. He does not allow us to see all
the line at once, but meets us at corners, with things we never
dreamed of; he shows us pictures in the darkness ; he startles
us by lightning at midnight : in many ways he uses what may
be called the element of surprise or amazement for the purpose
of educating us in the deepest spiritual truths. Surely this is
the case in an instance like the present. The Book of Psalms
will be all music and dancing and mirthfulness, delight, heaven-
liness ; there will be nothing about hell in a book consecrated to
harmony. So we should say, and therefore our wonder will be
the keener if even in this psalm-book we come upon expressions
appalling as lightning and terrible as uncalculated and unexpected
thunder.
It is beautiful to observe how gradually, so to say, the revela-
tion of the destiny of the wicked is made in the Book of Psalms.
We come upon the fact very early in the Psalter that there are
ungodly persons. Even in the very first psalm the destiny of the
wicked is indicated : — "The ungodly are not so : but are like the
chaff which the wind driveth away " (i. 4). This is comparatively
nothing. The wicked man might bear this. Still, we begin to
see how the line is pointing. This is only contempt; it is not
perdition. The wicked man is willing to be for the moment as
chafi which the wind driveth away : there is no destruction in
that driving ; there may be upset and tumult and somewhat of
perplexity and difficulty in being thus treated and opposed, but
there is no hell in this opposition of the wind. It is something to
mark the very first point. When we meet contempt in the Bible
we meet it under circumstances which invest it with tremendous
significance. The Bible is not a book which is contemptuous to-
wards man without some reason which will be vindicated. There
is no scorn in the divine revelation merely for scorn's own sake.
God does not judge merely because he would vary the monotony
of his eternity by treating with contempt the creatures of his own
hand. When he looks contemptuous he means judgment — hell !
At first, therefore, the wicked meet with no complacence in the
Holy Scriptures which are written in the language of music. The
moment the wicked man appears even in the Psalms he is driven
400 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
away like chaff. Note the time and note the beginning of the
divine displeasure.
Let us advance a step : — " Thou hast smitten all mine enemies
upon the cheek bone ; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly "
(iii. 7). So even thus early the Psalmists do not intend to give
much hospitality to the wicked ; even in the singing-house the
wicked man shall not sit down at ease, as if he had a right to be
where the heavenly music is. Now compare the figures : " the chaff
which the wind driveth away ; " and then a cheek bone which is
smitten and teeth which are broken. This is humiliation. There
is no grandeur in the punishment. There is nothing heroic in
such endurance as this. It is but a higher kind of contempt, a
more active scorn. But notice that it is indeed the scorn of God.
Are they not worthy of being smitten otherwhere than on the
cheek bone, or to have aught broken but their sharp teeth ? The
punishment is not yet internal or spiritual. Still, the figures
seem to belong to one another. Not to be regarded with dignified
indignation, but to be treated with contempt, to be smitten upon
the cheek bone and to have the teeth broken, is to be subjected
to humiliation of the deepest kind.
Now advance one step further : — " Upon the wicked he shall
rain snares, fire and brimstone, and an horrible tempest " (xi. 6).
Thus the figure changes violently. But still there is no peace
to the wicked. He does not grow upon our acquaintance. He
has not discovered to us unsuspected beauties or disclosed un-
imagined fascinations. The contempt has now grown into anger,
and the anger into judgment, and the judgment into perdition.
God cannot rest in heaven whilst there is one wicked thing in
all the universe. Yet we find these statements in the Book of
Psalms — in the tune book, in the book of harps and psalteries
and instruments of ten strings. Is there not even here something
significant ? Shall not the wrath of man be made to praise God ?
Shall there not be strange voices introduced into the great choir
at last, that shall even by their harshness and their hoarseness
contribute somewhat to the praise of a government that never
paltered with the wicked and that never accommodated itself to
unrighteousness ? Now we have come to the element of fire, and
still it burns, as thus : — " Thou shalt make them as a fiery oven
DESTINY OF THE WICKED. 401
in the time of thine anger : the Lord shall swallow them up in his
wrath, and the fire shall devour them " (xxi. 9). Why trifle with
such words? why endeavour by some grammatical jugglery to
wriggle out of them as though they meant something compara-
tively trivial ? Language cannot be clearer, words cannot be
stronger; God would be trifling with men if he said all this about
burning, swallowing up, and destruction, and simply meant some-
thing superficial, evanescent, and inconsiderable. " It is a fear-
ful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." " Our God
is a consuming fire." Why not be afraid of him in his relations
to sin, and exclaim penitently and rationally, It is right that
God should be thus angry with the wicked every day, for if he
were otherwise virtue would have no security and heaven would
be an impossibility ? Why try to reduce the figure to meaning-
lessness? The figure itself is less than the language which it
signifies when it is applied for divine purposes in relation to
eternal facts. We show but the foolish side of our nature when
we ask whether literal fire can be meant, and a local hell can be
intended by the expressions which are used concerning it. We
are not in a right mood of mind when we ask such foolish ques-
tions; the thing to be asked is this: What is God's relation to
sin ? and the answer is. It is a relation of judgment, hatred ; it
is the abominable thing which God hateth, and no literal fire can
be so hot and so destructive as the disapprobation of God.
We now come to another style of treatment, but still pointing
to the same solemn issue. Thus : — " Many sorrows shall be to
the wicked " (xxxii. 10). Note the environment : sorrows of manj'
kinds. God is not limited to one class of sorrow or penalty. The
wicked man shall be mocked, tripped up, disappointed; he shall
seize an egg, and find it a scorpion ; he shall set his teeth in
bread, and have those teeth broken by a stone. " Many sorrows,"
— many kinds of sorrows ; sorrows of every quality, and every
hue, and every range, and every name ; nay, more, new sorrows,
unexpected penalties, inflictions never dreamed of by the imagina-
tion of men. God has set the universe against the wicked man : the
stars will not light him home, the summer will grow only poison
for his hunger ; he has not a friend in all the starry firmament :
to not one of these bright, all-but-living planets can he look,
VOL. XII. 26
402 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
saying. That is mine : see how it smiles upon me, and would
talk to me if it could : no ; heaven's great firmament of stars is
as an embattled army against all wicked men. Whatever the
wicked man enjoys he steals. He is a felon in his heart. If
successful, he is a successful knave. Creation disowns him ;
heaven will not acknowledge his name. The prayers of the
wicked are an abomination to the Lord, and are sent back in
showers of burning sparks.
The wicked man has no easy time of it in the Book of Psalms.
" The face of the Lord is against them that do evil, to cut off the
remembrance of them from the earth. . . . Evil shall slay the
wicked" (xxxiv. i6, 21). The wickedness of the wicked man is
the sword by which he kills himself: his very success is his
failure; his very fattening is for the slaughter. "The face of
the Lord " — where is it ? what is it ? Is it symbolised by the
heavens and the earth, by all space and all magnitude? Can it
burn? Can it scorch men who look upon it ? Is it a face all eyes ?
Is it a face red with anger ? Is it a face terrible with ghostliness ?
Is it a spectral power that makes the darkness light, and then shuts
it up again as with a seal that cannot be broken ? This is how
the wicked man lives according to the revelation of the Book of
Psalms. The " face of the Lord" is against him : so is the face
of beauty, the face of light, the face of childhood ; no little child
will caress the wicked man, or in the midst of a caress will recoil
from him as if a serpent had been touched. " There is no peace,
saith my God, to the wicked." He cannot sit down but on a
stolen seat ; he dare not look up, for heaven's righteousness is
against him. These declarations are not made in a book of judg-
ments, in a collection of moral sentences pronounced upon moral
crime ; they are brought into the great harmonies and musical
expressions of the universe ; they are there used up, as it were, as
fuel by which is lighted the very altar of God.
Even in the Psalms we alight upon texts which come down
upon us like showers in a tempest : — "The wicked shall perish"
(xxxvii. 20) ; " The transgressors shall be destroyed together "
(xxxvii. 38) ; " Thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity,
thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth " (xxxix. ii).
D£S2IjVY of the WICKED. 403
Dare the wicked man read the Psalms ? Has he any one of the
hundred and fifty which he can call his own, and which he
can read in the morning light before going out to renew his
iniquity ? Is there not one line left for the poor wretch ? Has he
not one string in all the infinite harp ? Can he not quote one verse,
saying. This encourages me to do the best I can for myself, to
perpetrate mischief, to outwit my fellow-creatures, to keep false
weights and measures ; this will enable me to give licence to
every desire of my heart ? In all the Book of Psalms not one
little line can be claimed by the bad man. Here is a fate : who
dare encounter it ? " In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and
the wine is red ; it is full of mixture ; and he poureth out of the
same : but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall
wring them out, and drink them " (Ixxv. 8). Who is equal to
that occasion ? In whose hand is there a cup ? In the Lord's
hand. Then it may be large and heavy. What is the colour of
the wine ? It is the colour of fire, for it is " red." What is in the
cup ? A " mixture." Who can explain that word ? Who knows
what is brought together in that vessel— what various elements,
what strange constituents, what an unimaginable compound ?
Who shall take of the dregs thereof? All the wicked of the earth
shall live upon them, shall drink them ; their throats will be
suffocated; their whole nature will burn as with the fire of poison.
Why not ? they set themselves against the Lord, and against his
Anointed : let the battle be fair, let the contest be fought out to
its legitimate and tremendous end, and let him who is right win
at last. We cannot live a lifetime of opposition to God, and then
be friends with him at the very last as if nothing had occurred.
They who appeal to Caesar must to Caesar go : they who defy God
must enter the lists solitarily with him, and if they can fight
Omnipotence, let them do so.
But the wicked sometimes prosper : — " Their eyes stand out
with fatness : they have more than heart could wish ;" they seem to
have all the earth as their pasture : — "Thou didst set them in
slippery places : thou castedst them down into destruction How
are they brought into desolation, as in a moment ! they are utterly
consumed with terrors" (Ixxiii. 18, 19); and again: — "When
the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the workers oi
404 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
iniquity do flourish ; it is that they shall be destroyed for ever"
(xcii. 7). They dance around their own graves ; they jibe across
the poison they are about to drink. Their flourishing is but
superficial and evanescent ; there is no stay in it, or lasting
quality : there is no blessing in their lot. Who then will choose
the position of the wicked, and pursue the career of those whose
hearts are at enmity with God ? Note, they will have apparent
success; they will be released from much discipline, they will
escape into what for the moment may appear to be liberty ; they
can curse, and fume, and blaspheme, and cheat, and forge, and
lie, and take short cuts to what they call their fortune : all this
they can do, but the shorter the cut the nearer the hell.
Truly the Psalms are not all music ; there is a sound of judg-
ment in all this holy praise : — " A fire goeth before him, and
burneth up his enemies round about " (xcvii. 3) ; " They . . .
were brought low for their iniquity" (cvi. 43); "Fools because
of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are
afflicted" (cvii. 17); "He hath cut asunder the cords of the
wicked " (cxxix. 4) ; " Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God "
(cxxxix. 19); "He casteth the wicked down to the ground"
(cxlvii. 6). Not in some one particular psalm are the wicked
denounced, as if by a kind of accident, or as if to express a
momentary mood of the mind, or as if to exhaust the vengeance
of one particular poet : but from the first psalm right away on
to the very end, God's policy, so to say, against the wicked is one
and the same — a policy of hatred, detestation, judgment, and
everlasting destruction. There is not one word of relief; there
is nothing to trust to ; there is not one friend to flee to :
and we acknowledge this to be right. Is it not our own course,
in so far as we ourselves are really in earnest about anything
that is vital or delightful or true ? There is nothing arbitrary
in the treatment of the wicked as described in the Book of Psalms.
This is what society itself is doing on its own plane and according
to its own degree and quality. Take an occasion devoted to
solemn and noble music, and there is, according to our imagined
state of affairs, one man in the assembly who persists in throwing
discord into that music, in uttering hoarse, harsh sounds, in
marring the tender beauty of the whole occasion, — what is done
DESTINY OF THE WICKED. 405
with that man by the very society that will not call itself reli-
gious? Is that man allowed to remain and to continue his per-
sistent disturbance ? Does not the heart of the assembly rise
and say, " Eject him — cast him out " ? Let any man reply who
knows human nature. What is that in its own degree but
exactly the doctrine of the Bible in relation to wickedness ?
Many shall come and say, " Lord, Lord, open unto us ; thou
hast taught us in our streets, we have eaten and drunk in thy
presence, we have done some wonderful works in thy name, —
Lord, Lord, open unto us." But he will answer them and say,
" I know you not whence ye are ; depart from me, all ye
workers of iniquity." Iniquity in heaven would be heaven
without heavenliness. It cannot be. It is a disorder against
which the spirit of righteousness utters its indignant and de-
structive judgment. Is it not the same in other conditions and
in other places ? An assembly is called for the purpose of
solemnly considering some great question, and one man persists
in turning aside the spirit of order; he is determined upon
unruliness and ill-nature, and he is evidently not in harmony
or accord with the purpose of the gathering ; and, observe, that
assembly is not a church : it may be a meeting of politicians
who know nothing about heaven or hell in their then capacity :
what do they do ? They use the same language which has
already been employed — " Eject him — cast him out, for he is
not of the spirit and order of this assembly." So, then, if we
consider the whole matter from end to end, we shall find that
even in society there is precisely the same indignation against
that which is wicked in relation to itself which we find in the
Bible as in relation to the living God. We ask questions about
the destiny of the wicked : why turn that destiny into a specula-
tive inquiry ? Take what view we may of the language of Scrip-
ture (and there we must not be uncharitable) there remains the
awful fact, that to be wicked is to be without peace ; to be wicked
is to be for ever at enmity with God ; that to be at enmity with
God is to provoke the judgment of the Most High ; that to live
under the judgment of God is hell beyond all that human imagina-
tion can conceive. We must not ask too many questions about
these unrevealed mysteries, but, judging by the policy of society,
by the instincts of the heart when it is in its best moods, we can
4o6 TMh PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
but say that it is right that any spirit that is opposed to the
spirit of purity, order, peace, righteousness, music, must be
destroyed if the universe is ever to be at rest.
The words quoted from the Psalms indicate — indistinctly
enough, as all words must do — the state of the world when Christ
came into it. In the Psalms there is not one word said of the
sinner that is not full of judgment. " Let the sinners be con-
sumed out of the earth " we find at the close of one of the
noblest compositions in the whole Psalter, namely, the 104th
Psalm — a great psalm of nature, a marvellous contemplation of
all the glories and beauties of nature.; and the Psalmist at last
says, " Let the sinners be consumed out of the earth, and let
the wicked be no more," as if to say. Only let this be accom-
plished, and the universe will be complete in its music and
beauty. How does Christ speak when he comes into a world
so described ? He calls to repentance. He says, " The Son of
man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." While
we were yet enemies, Christ died for us : herein is love : last
of all God sent his Son. " Go ye into all the world, and preach
the Gospel to every creature ; " " He that believeth shall be
saved." We cannot understand that message until we are
deeply affected with the thoughts which are written in the
Book of Psalms and in other portions of Holy Scripture. The
. mountain was very great, but Jesus Christ said he would level
it with the earth ; the darkness was a darkness terrible, a seven-
fold midnight, but he said he would set a star in the midst of it
that would dissolve the gloom, and a sun that should drive every
shadow away. He said. The whole head is sick, the whole heart
is faint : from the crown of the head to the sole of the feet there
is no health, but I will restore soundness and health to the soul
of man. He came to do no little work. He did not enter into
a small battlefield where the foes were few and feeble ; he came
to wrestle with the very spirit of evil, to cast out Satan, to bruise
the serpent's head. O thou blessed mighty Son of God, go on
to conquer — " win and conquer, never cease ! " He has pro-
mised not to surrender the contest. It is in his hands. He must
reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. We believQ
this word, for we call it the Word of God,
PRAYER.
Almighty God, help us to search the Scriptures, for in them we know we
have eternal life, and they are charged in every line with the meaning of the
incarnation of thy Son ; they testify of Christ ; they tell of his coming; they
reveal his person and his character; they contain the sweet words of his
ministry; they speak of all his pain and agony, and of his death and resur-
rection, of his ascension and priesthood. May we therefore understand the
Scriptures and find comfort in them every day. We bless thee for a book
that is now written in our mother tongue which explains to us the way of
eternal life. This is the Book of God; this is the voice of Heaven; we
cannot mistake it ; we need not misunderstand it ; save us evermore from
misapplying it. Thy Word is full of life ; thy Word is light ; thy Word is
music. We mourn that we have not acquainted ourselves more deeply with
thy Word, for then should we have had an answer to every temptation, a
defence against every assault, and a sanctuary inviolable in the time of
winter and tempest. May we now begin to read thy Word with the spirit
and with the understanding, and may we open our hearts to receive it
with all simplicity and gratitude. Behold, thou dost make us men in
Christ Jesus as we acquaint ourselves with thy testimony. There is no book
like the Book of God : it is the bread sent down from heaven, of which if a
man eat he shall never hunger. Thy Book is as a fountain of water in
the wilderness ; we drink thereof, lift up our heads, and are glad. We pray
that the inspiring Spirit may inspire the readers of thy Book, so that thy
Word may be read in the right temper and in the right tone, and may be
accepted with all humility, and that the spirit of the readers may be a spirit
of teachableness. Walk with us, thou Son of God, and beginning at Moses
and all the prophets and in all the Psalms expound unto us the things which
belong unto thyself, and our hearts shall burn within us, and behold at even-
tide there shall be a great light. Forgive our neglect of the holy testimonies.
We have turned aside from them when they were difficult ; we have disobeyed
them when they rebuked the passion of our hearts; we have done despite
unto the spirit of thy counsel : but from this day forth, by the mighty energy
of God the Holy Ghost, we would read the Book with a new feeling, a new
love, and a new hope, assured that we shall be made glad with a new
satisfaction. Now help us to bear the burden of life. Enable us to smile
amid the clouds as if we had caught the great light shining far beyond them
and had known its meaning. Permit us to exemplify in our life how good
a thing it is to trust in the living God and have bread to eat that the world
knoweth not^of Thus shall we interpret thy Word to others, and men who
cannot understand its hard letter will see somewhat of its benign and
gracious spirit in our noble temper, in our self-sacrifice, in our great, sweet
4o8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
charity. Pardon our sin, for it is great ; wash us in the holy sacrificial
blood of Jesus Christ thy Son : accept us in him, and may we at last be
clothed with his righteousness. Amen.
THE SCOPE OP REVELATION AS SHOWN IN
THE PSALMS.
WE need hardly remind ourselves that the Psalmists had
not so large a Bible as we have. Yet in saying so
perhaps some modification of that assurance might be allowed ;
because where there is one verse of the Bible there seems to be
the whole Bible. It would be difficult to say where the Bible
begins and where it ends ; for as we grow in intimacy with its
spirit and meaning we seem to feel that it has no beginning
and no ending; it comes down from immeasurable heights to
commune with us and help us in manifold ways without giving
much account of its own origin and leaving us very largely to
determine its scope by our own experience of it. In mere pages
in and mere bulk the Psalmists had not so much Bible as we
have. Yet in another sense they had all the Bible. He who has "
one word of Jesus Christ's has, if he knew how to use it, the
whole gospel that lived in his heart and expressed itself in
his Priesthood. When, therefore, we say the Psalmists had not
so large a Bible as we have, it must be understood with these
explanations.
The Psalmists regarded revelation as a storehouse of wonders.
They do not hesitate to apply the words " wonderful " and
" wondrous " to what they see in the scroll of revelation : —
" Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out
of thy law" (cxix. i8). The reader would be surprised by what
he saw. He would be startled by new beauties, charmed by new
music, lured on the righteous way by new persuasives. Notice
the double action of the Spirit in this very exclamation. The
Spirit inspired the law, dictated its letter, set it in its place ; did
not, then, the Holy Spirit do all that was required to be done ?
According to the desire of this prayer there remained something
yet to be accomplished, and that something is expressed in the
opening words : — " Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold." It
is not enough to have an inspired writer, we must have also
THE SCOPE OF REVELATION. 409
inspired readers. We see next to nothing of the mere letter.
Looking at the letter is like looking at the outside of a king's
palace ; its scope, its wealth, its hospitality, its warmth are all
within. So if we know the letter only, we know nothing ; we
must know the genius, the spirit, the inner thought ; we must
see what is to the naked eye now invisible. Here, then, is a
double action of the Spirit : he inspired the writer, and he must
now inspire the reader; he first revealed the mystery to him
who wrote these words, and now he must open the eyes of those
who would that they may see, not the framework only and the
elaborate mechanism, but the internal meaning, the spiritual
thought, and feel the eternal force. The Psalmist again exclaims
"Thy testimonies are wonderful" (cxix. 129). How is it that
we say about this Book, the more we read it the less we seem to
have read it ? Because it grows upon us. In the springtide
men say to one another, as the showers fall and the sunshine
gleams, we can almost see the hedges and the trees growing :
the growth is so quick as to be almost measurable by the eye
whilst the observer stands and looks upon the green beauty. So
in the springtide of the soul, when we are made aright by the
action of the Holy Spirit, as we read the inspired Book we seem
to see it expand, enlarge, beautify, and we exclaim — " Thy
testimonies are wonderful " : they touch the imagination at its
highest point ; they give satisfaction to the keenest hunger ; they
leave no aspiration of the soul without its appropriate reply.
The question that is now forced upon us is, Have we read the
Scriptures so as to have seen in them " wondrous things " ? Have
we read them with the microscopic eye that sees minuteness,
detail, beautiful finish even in the least and remotest, things, as
if nothing had been done ofif-handedly, carelessly, or hastily ?
Have we read them with the telescopic eye that sees how great
they are, how planetary, how full of widest and most vital in-
fluence ? Have we caught the meaning of their elevation and
nobleness ? Have we been struck with the wray in which the
testimonies of God have anticipated all time, so that no new
Bible is needed but only a new reading of the old Bible ? What
event has escaped attention ? For what set of circumstances is
no provision made ? What rocks in that life-sea are unmapped ?
410 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
What wildernesses have been left unnoticed by the divine guide
of life ? These are questions which force from us at once a
literary and a spiritual judgment. Men who are not prepared to
enter into the spirit of the Bible have yet been struck by the
marvellousness of its contents, by its reach of thought, by its
political audacity, by its ardent and noble statesmanship. Men
who have not prayed its prayers have been subdued by its poetry
and amazed by its forecasts. What wonder, then, that we our-
selves should speak of God's Book as no commonplace literature,
but as sparkling with wonder, as gleaming with celestial lights ?
Herein imagination plays an important part in our religious
culture. We must be caught at the point of our highest mental
elevation again and again, so as to feel that we are in the hands
of a Master Teacher, who has been on pinnacles which we have
not yet climbed, on heights that as yet do not come within the
sweep of the naked eye. Such influence is exerted upon us as
we peruse the testimonies which are " wonderful."
We cannot read the Psalms without feeling how revelation is
treated as a practical guide and defence : — " Thou through thy com-
mandments hast made me wiser than mine enemies " (cxix. 98).
The Bible makes sagacious men. If any man has so deported
himself as to have acquired a character for weakness, he must
not ascribe his imbecility to his Bible. The Bible makes
statesmen, business-men, philosophers, critics. The best busi-
ness book in the world is the Bible. The corner-stone of empire
is the Bible. The inspiration and sanctification of law must be
looked for in the Bible. Here the witness says that through
study of the divine commandments he was able to outwit his
enemies, outrun them, outmatch them in every contest ; his
wit was keener, his vision was wider, his grasp of all things
was more masterly; study of the divine Word had enabled
him to set his feet on the neck of his enemies, and tell them
that they only lived on his mercy. "Through thy precepts I
get understanding " (cxix. 104). The witness felt the action
of revelation upon the mind pure and simple : it quickens the
faculties ; it clears and enlarges the judgments ; it sets the
observer at a right angle of observation ; it puts all things in
their right light and perspective. The wise Bible-reader becomes
THE SCOPE OF REVELATION. 411
wiser by his reading. He grows intellectually. To his own
surprise he handles difficulties as he never handled them before;
he has leverage, and sense of vantage, and can deport himself
as one who is well instructed even in regard to mysteries.
" Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path "
(cxix. 105). It is not only an astronomical wonder, far up
among the dark clouds, only to be searched out by telescopes ;
it is a lamp unto the feet, and a hght unto the particular path
which the pilgrim travels. So to say, the Bible accommodates
itself to personal and domestic uses ; it can be just what we
need it to be, — a light along a dark country lane, a lamp
gleaming upon a forest path to show us our course through all
the entanglement and labyrinth of the thick wood ; or it can
blaze as the sun never shone even at its fullest strength.
" The entrance of thy word giveth light ; it giveth understanding
unto the simple" (cxix. 130). These may be called tributes
to the intellectual working of Holy Scripture, — its operation
upon the understanding, its illumination of the mind in all its
secret places. Observe how comprehensive are these claims,
and how useful in the common duties of life. We all may have
enemies : if we would be more than a match for the strongest
of our foes we must feed upon the bread of life sent down from
heaven. We all have need of intellectual quickening and
illumination : if we would enjoy inspiration and light we must
make ourselves familiar with the profound disclosures of divine
revelation. So the Bible is not a mere ghost in the life, it is not
a centre of superstition, it is not something that must be deferred
to because of a great name, or an unknown history, or an im-
measurable influence : it is something that is to be actually applied
to the hard questions in life, it is as bread that must be eaten, it
is as medicine that must be taken now and again for the heart's
bitterness and sickness, it is a light that must be used for the
immediate necessity. Do not let us lose the Bible by a pretended
and superstitious reverence for it. We must revere the Bible
and signify our acceptance of it by turning it all into practical life, '
by living the commandments, and by showing, whether by the
shining of the countenance, the charitableness of the spirit, or
the liberality of the hand, that we have entered into all th-Q
significance of the beatitudes,
412 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
This reminds us that revelation is looked upon in the Psalms
as harmonising with human experience : — "The word of the Lord
is tried " (xviii. 30). It is not a word which has not been put to
the test. It is a rock upon which men have ventured to build
the greatest houses. It is as a hand which men have grasped in
the time of peril and perplexity. It is an assurance that has
been put to the severest test in the sick-chamber, the market-
place, in the perils of solitude and in the perils of society. " Thy
testimonies are very sure " {xciii. 5). May they be compared to
a long chain ? then every link is strong, and every link is equally
strong. May they be regarded as spoken counsels addressed to
urgent needs ? then every word comes with an assurance of
solidity ; it is not a fleck of foam, it is not a mere noise, it is not
even a piece of detached music ; it is solid, rock-like, most sub-
stantial, will bear to be pressed upon, and the more it is pressed
upon the surer it will prove itself to be. " I esteem all thy
precepts concerning all things to be right" (cxix. 128). That is
a noble testimony. It deserves to be repeated again and again —
" I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right."
Perhaps those who have hitherto considered that the Bible has
not touched upon many points may be surprised that all the
while it has had those very points in view, and has kept the
answer to many a secret until the world was prepared to receive
it. There is more in the Bible than has yet been discovered.
But the witness confines himself to what he himself has known.
This man has tried the precepts — in the palace, in the dens and
caves of the earth, in plentifulness, in hunger, in high noon, and
in deep midnight, and wherever he has tested the precepts he
has said, In all things they are right ; they meet the case, they
have a marvellous adaptation, their resources are unquestionable.
"What wonder that the same Psalmist exclaims in another verse
" Thy word is true from the beginning " (cxix. 160). Who can
define the expression " the beginning " ? What is the beginning
of Truth ? As well ask what is the beginning of God I But the
Psalmist has found that from end to end the word is true — true
in the alphabet, true in the complex literature, true in the
f philosophy, true in the poetry, true in the spiritual worship.
This, after all, is the great test of Scripture and of faith. We
are bound to ask, How does the Scripture come down into the
THE SCOPE OF REVELATION. 413
market-place? it is beautiful on the wing; it flies well: how
does it walk ? aloft in the morning air it sings like a bird : but
what does it do for men when they are laid low, when they
walk in darkness, when they cry for very pain, when they seek
water and there is none, when they die for help and there is
no hand to touch them, — what is the Bible then ? what then
do all its testimonies, precepts, statutes, and songs amount to ?
By that inquiry we are willing that the claims of the Bible
should be judged. And all formulated faith must come to the
same test. The faith looks well as it is outlined in the catechism
or in the book of theology ; it reads fluently ; there is no break
in its broad and noble flow : but how does it answer in the
battle ? how does it stand fire ? what is its colour when the
storm rages and the infinite tempest tries the strength of all ?
A faith that will not walk as well as fly, fight as well as sing,
sit up all night with the sufferer as well as go out all day with
the traveller, is a faith not to be trusted, however pompous its
expression, however ecclesiastically guarded its dignity, how-
ever ostentatious and solemn and exacting its sanctions. We
are willing that the Scripture and that Christian faith should be
subjected to the test of experience. How does the Bible wear ?
Let the old man speak. How does the Bible reply to the wear
and tear of life ? Let the most aged student reply ; those who
have yet to put on the armour may now be silent, and let the
old soldiers stand well to the front, and tell what they have
seen of the testimonies, precepts, and commandments of God.
Now the point of view changes, and the Scripture is regarded
as contributing to the highest spiritual enjoyment. This is not a
prison-house this Bible of God. Nor is it a school of simple and
pure discipline. There is pleasure as well as duty. Hear the
words : " I delight to do thy will, O my God " (xl. 8) ; and
again : " I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, as much
as in all riches " (cxix. 14) ; and again : " I will delight myself
in thy statutes" (cxix. 16); and again still: "Thy testimonies
also are my delight and my counsellers " (cxix. 24) ; and finally :
" I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have;
loved " (cxix. 47). It is surely something to have the witness df
such men plainly written before us. There is an unquestionably
414 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
solemn side of the revelation. When we listen to the law, we
are terrified by its sternness. As the Ten Commandments fall
upon us like ten thunders from the angry clouds we say. Who
can carry out all this penal discipline ? Again and again we are
humbled and made to feel how helpless we are in responding
to the commandments of God. But we work, by the grace of
heaven, patiently ; we toil lovingly and hopefully, and presently
the statutes of the Lord become our songs in the house of our
pilgrimage, law is beaten into music, and discipline becomes the
root out of which fair flowers spring. We must continue at the
work before we can enter into the fruition of joy. We must do
the will with loving patience, expecting the reward and living
in the assurance of its realisation. The joy does not come at
first; it is not a bubble on the water, a moment seen and gone
for ever; the joy comes last, so that after difficult reading, after
many a puzzled inquiry, after lighting many a midnight lamp
and sitting up with the prophets and the minstrels of Israel, the
evangelists and the apostles of Christ, we come at last to say
Eureka ! and then no man can take that spoil out of the hand
that has wrought for it, and has been successful in obtaining it
by the comfort and benediction of God.
The Psalmists never hesitated to say that the Bible, as they had
it, met all life's deepest necessities : " This is my comfort in my
afQiction : for thy word hath quickened me " (cxix. 50) ; " I
remembered thy judgments of old, O Lord ; and have comforted
m3'self" (cxix. 52); "Unless thy law had been my delights, I
should then have perished in mine affliction " (cxix. 92); "Trouble
and anguish have taken hold on me : yet thy commandments are
my delights" (cxix. 143). A Book of which all this can be said
the world will not willingly let die. Whatever is held by the
heart is held longest. The friend that will sit up all night when
we are in pain and weariness is not a friend we can easily cast off.
Many a summer-holiday acquaintance we can well dismiss, but the
friend that knows us, that sticketh closer than a brother, that is
the same in winter and in summer, that is tenderer in affliction
even than in joy, is a friend whose name will stand at the top, and
will survive the going-away of many whose affection was super-
ficial, and whose relation to us, though ostentatious, was flimsy.
THE SCOPE OF REVELATION. 415
If the Psalmists could say all this, what can we say? If the
dawn was so beautiful, what of the mid-day ? If the spring was
so trim, what of the harvest ? If I were in an accusatory mood,
I should charge the Church with neglecting the systematic and
thorough study of the Bible. It is not enough to dip into the
Bible here and there. Such promiscuous reading is little better
than an insult. Congregations do not like a regular and
systematic and thorough Biblical exposition. They like to be
surprised as so many children by the novelty of the text. They
do not bend themselves strongly and lovingly to the study of
the Book, saying, Let us have Bible, nothing but Bible, for the
Word of the Lord alone endureth for ever. And I would also
accuse the pulpit of yielding to the foolish desire of congregations
in this matter. The use of texts has been most disastrous in
Christian history. I know of nothing more perilous, sometimes
more wicked, than to take a text, to detach a line from the current
of its meaning, to make a motto of a revelation, to tear a limb
from a body and speak of it as a unity. In these matters we
have much to answer for. On the other hand, never was the
Bible so elucidated as it is to-day ; never was it so pictorially
illustrated as it is now ; never was it so cheap as it is at this
moment. The best commentary upon the Bible is experience.
The man who can stand up and say : I have been in affliction,
sorrow, darkness, weakness, poverty, and the Bible has proved
itself to be counsellor, and light, and guide, and friend, is one
of the best annotators the Bible can have. As for those who
wish to understand the Book, let me say. Begin where you can :
begin at a parable, begin at a beatitude, begin at any accessible
point, and work your way from the known to the unknown —
not fitfully and spasmodically, but steadily, constantly, patiently.
Blessed Book, bright as heaven when the sun has dissolved the
clouds : beautiful as earth when the summer has clothed it with
flowers : wondrous Book, — now all music, now all judgment, — a
fountain in the wilderness, a shade as of a great rock in a weary
land, — an infinite provision for the soul's infinite hunger, — not
a man-made Book at all, but quite full of God, throbbing with
God, burning with God, awful, solemn, sublime with God. Other
books come and go, but this Book stands for ever, because the
world for ever needs it.
"I WILL."
IN a great many instances in the Psalms we meet with the
expression "I will." Let us take these words as indicating
purpose, resolution, solemn determination on the part of the
writers, and learn in what direction their best thoughts moved.
The instances in which the expression " I will " occurs are
practically innumerable; so we must be content with specimens,
and not aim at exhaustion
What is the signification of " I will " as used by the Psalmists ?
Does the expression relate to mere impulse ? or is it founded
upon reason? Everything will depend upon the reply we are
able to give to that inquiry. The " I will " itself may be as often
wrong as right. Everything depends upon its association.
Happily in the case of the Psalmists there is no difficulty in
finding out the real measure and intent of this formula of deter-
mination. First of all, it is evident that the Psalmists had a good
reason, and that on account of the solidity and richness of their
spiritual reason they were able to say " I will " with a distinct-
ness and firmness amounting in themselves to an argument.
Hear the proof: "I will extol thee, O Lord" (xxx. i); that may
be mere religious passion. The heart might cry out so in some
mood of pleasurable excitement; or this might be a mere musician's
resolution. A musician may write music without heeding the
words which that music expresses. Men may write poetry
without feeling its inmost spiritual meaning. Does the Psalmist,
therefore, mean to gratify himself? That is perfectly possible.
A man may go to church for no other reason ; yea, a man may
open God's own Book and read it for the sake of the English —
the liquid, tender, strong, beauteous, tuneful English; saying,
There is nothing like it : how it rolls and flows, and with what
grace it returns, and then proceeds again to fuller expression of
"7 will:* 417
some noble thought ; pausing, therefore, at the words, " I will
extol thee, O Lord," we say. Does he call for harmony ? Is the
spirit of music strong upon him ? Is he going to delight himself
vocally, saying, at the close of his praise. That is fine music; that
is rich in tuneful expression ; there is quite a novelty in the turn
of that music ? These inquiries must be answered before we
can establish our fundamental point, that the "I will" of the
Psalms was not an expression of a vehement desire of a selfish
kind, but was based upon solid and useful reasoning. The proof
is in this very quotation, " I will extol thee, O Lord ; for [be-
cause]"— this is my reason : this is not a song without logic as
a song without words — " for thou hast lifted me up, and hast
not made my foes to rejoice over me." A man who is in that
condition has a right to extol God ; nay, he is bound by every
honourable obligation to extol the Lord. But whilst we are so
talking about an ancient Psalmist, are we not involving ourselves
in a corresponding responsibility? If the Lord is to be extolled
because of lifting-up and deliverance from danger and difficulty,
who amongst us can be silent? The Lord's house should vibrate
with praise ; the very stones should be made to take part in the
sacrifice of thanksgiving. Enough, however, that in this case we
have a reason for the song.
Again : " I will freely sacrifice unto thee : I will praise thy
name, O Lord " (liv. 6). So far we have nothing ; we must
await the final term. In some languages we are bound to listen
until the very end, because the whole meaning of the longest
sentence may be in the final word. There is one language
notably in which the interlocutor cannot interrupt the speaker,
because he knows not until the last word what the speaker is
talking about. A blessed thing to speak in that language — a
language that cannot be broken in upon with rude remarks : for
the speaker, in the long and involved sentence, may agree with,
or differ from you vitally, but until you have heard the last
word you can make no remark upon the speech. So it is in this
instance, "I will freely sacrifice unto thee: I will praise thy
name, O Lord " — why ? " For [because] it is good." Here then
is a song of gratitude — a song of decency. Religion has its
higher grounds and its lower levels. We may regard this for
VOL. XII. 27
4l8 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
the moment as one of the inferior levels. Here is a man who
has seen that the name of God is good ; instead of passing by it,
even in respectful silence, he says, I will sing here; here I will
build an altar, and offer freely the sacrifice of praise : it is but
decent, it is but just, that 1 should do so. But again, if this be
the case with a historical psalmist, are we not thereby drawn
into similar obligations? Have we not proved the name of God
to be good ? Are we not in a position to say, His providence
is kind and large ? Is there a man whose own life would not
witness against him if he ventured to say that God was other
than richly and eternally good ? If we have the reason we
should proceed to the CKpression of the praise. Who has any
respect for ingratitude? To believe a man to have done you
good, and yet to ignore him, make no sign to him, never to grasp
him by the hand, never to say, God bless you for your goodness
to me, that would be condemned as base unthankfulness.
Ingratitude is not the less because it is shown towards our
Father in heaven.
Take another and closing instance: "I will sing a new song
unto thee, O God" (cxliv. 9, 10). Why? "Who delivereth
David his servant from the hurtful sword." It would be a
difficult thing for David to sing a new song : has he not already
sung a thousand songs? How can he find another? Herein
is the m3'stery of rehgious music : it always opens a way for
itself, and creates its own opportunities. Herein is the mystery
of true religious speech : the divinely inspired religious teacher
is never at a loss for further argument, richer illustration, nobler
appeal. Sometimes he says, I cannot go further, for there is a
great stone wall in front of me, and not one inch beyond it can
I get; and, lo ! when he has slept awhile, and God has subtly
comforted him in his spirit, he goes forward to the said stone
wall, and behold it is but yellow mist, and he passes through it
to see sights richer than he ever yet gazed upon ! David sang
his new song for personal mercies. And we cannot really sing
a song unto the Lord unless we have gone through all the
experience which it tunefully expresses. We cannot sing
another man's song. We say of this song, or that, It was
composed for such and such a singer. What is the meaning?
"7 will:' 419
The meaning is that such is the quality of the man, and such the
quality of his voice, that the sentiment and the tune will suit him
supremely. We have a higher reason in the Church. Every
man sings what he himself has felt ; then he sings with all his
powers : he himself is a living song. Until we have some such
relation to our music we shall be but mechanical performers —
neither inspired artistes nor true worshippers. These instances,
then, will show that we are not dealing with mere impulse.
This is music coming out of logic, as blossoms in the springtime
come out of hidden roots : the blossoms are not showered upon
the tree from the blue heavens, they are brought all the way up
from the black, tangled, hidden roots — these touches of colour,
these flushes of life, these mysteries of the interaction of creation.
So with the songs of the sanctuary : they come out of hard
thinking, hard living, secret communion, deep, vital connection
with the earth and with the sun. It is even so the little
blossoms show their bannerets to the spring light. They come
out of the tree, the tree comes out of the earth, the earth comes
out of the sun, and the sun holds on by some higher flame, — and
up and up the concatenation goes till it touches the infinite Hand
— the gracious throne.
Take another view. We shall now see how the praise of God
offered by good men expresses the necessity of the heart.
They must pray. Suddenly their voices are lifted up in holy
song, and are borne away in high rapture and upon strong
wings. Now we come to expressions, without which the
religious life would not be complete. Yet they are expressions
condemned by some thinkers who falsely suppose themselves
to be religious. Let us take some instances : " Unto thee
will I cry, O Lord my rock" (xxviii. i). Must a man "cry"?
Yes, if in earnest. There is no coldness in true religion.
Exclamation has its place as certainly as logic. There is no
reason to withdraw confidence from those Christian communions
which are distinguished by much ejaculation and exclamatory
address to heaven. We may not need such methods of worship ;
to us indeed they may mean something that is not wholly
agreeable : but who are we ? Did any man ever seriously stand
still and say. Who am I that I should have any opinion about
^20 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
any other man? " -cr. nust work according to their capacity,
and the quality of their nature, and the circumstances by which
they have been surrounded ; therefore, when a man says in the
Church, "Unto thee will I cry, O Lord my rock," he may be
offering as accept ble worship as if he were arguing upon
something that was never disputed, and proving something that
the best of the »vorld does not really need to know. We must
allow for individual characteristics in this ministry of worship.
" I will bless the Lord at all times : his praise shall con-
tinually be in my mouth " (xxxiv, i). What good can a man
do by uttering f ch words? He can do much good: he can
rouse, excite, stiniulate, call attention ; and who knows but that
in his crying and exclamation he may touch some answering
chord in those who are suddenly arrested by his voice ? There
is a mystery in music we have not yet fathomed in the Church.
If we were anything but a church we should put music into a
higher position. She, God's daughter, is allowed to go where
she likes, and find a home where she may : whereas she ought
to be presiding at the Church's table, and ministering to the
Church's need. Who can hear the blare of trumpet, the throb
of drum, the high exclamation of a spiritual faith, without
answering, and claiming kinship, and acknowledging that the
nature is touched into new emotion and lifted into higher
experiences ?
" I will give thee thanks in the great congregation : I will
praise thee among much people" (xxxv. i8). So he would
not sing his song alone, behind the green hedge, or under the
white-blossomed pear-tree; he would not seek a solitary place
in the wilderness, or wait until he was far out upon the sea,
before he began the divine sacrifice. He would rather say.
Where are the people assembled ? Where is the largest repre-
sentation of the human family accessible to me ? I will no
sooner go into the great congregation than I will begin to sing
and to praise God. When a man preaches he excites contra-
diction. There is no living fool that cannot find fault with a
preacher. But when we sing God's praise we are brought more
and more nearly together by some secret spiritual action.
"/ WILL* 4^1
When we pray we seldom contradict one' another. We need,
therefore, to be united at some point in the service. The
Psalmist says he will praise God in the great congregation — and
make a congregation of it, weld it together, um'^e it, consolidate it,
fire it with one grand passion. As the army" marches past we
seem to hear but one footfall — a thousand men marching together
in perfect time ; so when the Church is singing its hymn, though
it be ten thousand strong in number, it should be but one voice,
that voice being like the voice of many waters.
Now change the point of view, and see how the " I will " is
sometimes associated with a negative form o^ expression. We
have heard the Psalmist say, " I will," now let us hear him say,
" I will not " : "I will not fear what flesh can do unto me . . .
I will not be afraid what man can do unto me" (Ivi. 4, 11).
This comes of true singing ; this is the result of intelligent,
full, rich, spiritual praise. We get courage in the sanctuary.
We may come to it coldly, despondingly, as broken men, hardly
able to put one foot before another ; but as the holy process
develops, as heart is brought into harmony with heart, and all
hearts are conscious of the near and all-blessing presence of God,
courage returns, the hands that had fallen by the side are lifted
up again, and men are prepared to go out into the world
boldly, fearing no man, because always fearing God only. But
the Psalmist has to be brought into a deeper experience than
this — the very last experience into which men pass in spiritual
education, especially such men as the Psalmist — sons of the
mountain, children born in danger, and living all their lifetime
amidst storms and tempests ; men who are called upon to be
always on the defensive, to be watching for the enemy, and to be
repulsing the advancing foe. This is the experience to which
the Psalmist is now brought, and to which every man must be
brought if he would see God in all the fulness of his beauty, and
realise God in all the comfortableness of his presence and grace.
"I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save
me" (xliv. 6). Now he will be a son of God. So long as he
held that bow in his hand we said, He is still proud, self-con-
fident ; watch how the fire comes and goes in his eye ; see how
42i THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE,
he trembles with conscious strength ; that hand never missed ;
when it drew the bow the arrow went straight to the mark ;
and he still has his bow in his hand, but now he lays it down he
may begin to pray. So long as he keeps his sword by his side,
we say, He is trusting to that sword ; it is good steel ; it has
often been used to great advantage in the field ; it is long,
strong, sharp ; it is historical steel — see how he handles it, with
the familiarity of love. The work of grace is not yet complete
in him. In a moment he feels for the sword, and having touched
it he says, I am all right, I have got my friend by my side.
His education is not complete. But now, presently, he takes out
sword and sheath, and lays them both down, and says, " I will
not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me."
Can we join the Psalmist in all these determinations, positive
and negative? Perhaps we may have some difficulty in choosing
the point of union. But there is one point now to be named at
which we must unite with him, heart and soul, or there is no
hope for us. Here comes the beginning of the gospel : jiere is
the publican before the time ; here is the New Testament written
in Old Testament ink : " I will declare mine iniquity ; I will
be sorry for my sin " (xxxviii. i8). Now the king comes very
near to us. We are not all musicians ; we cannot discourse to
God upon an instrument of ten strings ; but here, when he says,
" I will be sorry for my sin," we can say, each for himself, " And
so will I : God be merciful to me a sinner." Not, I will be sorry
for the sin of the world, I will lament the spread of public
iniquity, I will grieve for the debasement and corruption of
nations and governments, and the prostitution of sovereignties
and rulerships ; but, " I will be sorry for my sin " — a personal
confession, a personal sorrow. He who would be sorry for
his own sin has no sorrow to spend on account of the sin of
others. When his own sins are forgiven, and he rises up a
pardoned man, he will show his sorrow for the sins of others
by preaching to them, sweetly and lovingly, with all the emphasis
of gratitude, the gospel of forgiveness through the Son of God.
It is good to keep companionship, then, with this man of the
strong " I will." Such a man will do us no harm. He never
"7 WILL** 423
proposes a mean device. We never hear him say, I will gratify
myself; I will do some mean thing; I will sneer at the poor;
I will trample upon the weak ; I will take advantage of the
helpless ; I will wait until the man can hold up no longer, and
then when he has come to the point of extremity I will have
the property at my price, and he may go to ruin. He says, I
will praise the Lord ; I will extol the Lord ; I will bless the
Lord ; I will offer sacrifices unto the Lord. It is good to keep
the society of such a man. The very utterance of his vows,
vith so clear an emphasis, may have an educational eftect upon
those who follow him. Would God we had more courage !
Sometimes when a man has said, " As for me and my house,
we will serve the Lord," the whole neighbourhood seems to have
turned in with one consent, saying, " And God helping us, so will
we." We must get the will right ; we must have the purpose
set in the heavenly direction ; then all the rest will come in due
order. But how is the will to be made right ? What a mystery
is the will ! Men write great books upon it, and then regret they
ever began them. Men are lost in the metaphysics of the will.
One generation of metaphysicians contradicts another, but the
will abideth for ever, — secret, spiritual, immeasurable, apparently
but not really accessible, capable of telling lies, capable of putting
on features and characteristics which are but happy yet knavish
simulations. The will ! Who can reach it but the Creator ? Who
can cleanse it but the Saviour ? Who can inspire it but the
Regenerator — God the Holy Ghost? There is an "I will" of
pride; there is an "I will" of the lips; there is an "I will" of
momentary, evanescent, and selfish desire; but the "I will"
which we ought to pray for is the " I will" of the man who said,
'' I will arise, and go to my father."
PRAYER, •
Almighty God, we bless thee that the Son of man did come to send a fire
upon the earth. We rejoice that he also sent a sword abroad. We are
grateful for the spirit of revolution that is in the Cross ; we rejoice that we
cannot sink into indifference when we are under the inspiration of the love
of God : we must awake with the morning, and toil all day, and pray in the
night season, and return to the battle as men who are conscious and assured
of victory, because the Lord is the truth, and is with the truth, and will
bring the truth to the throne in his own time. We bless thee for all that
Christianity has done for men, in uniting men, in creating a new heart in
men : this also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, wonderful in counsel
and excellent in. working ; this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in
our eyes. We rejoice that thou dost take all things into thine own hands,
that what treasure we have is ot God, and is held in earthen vessels, that the
excellency of the power may be thine and not ours. We know that in due
time thou wilt cause this saying to be true — Behold the stone which the
builders rejected, the same is become the headstone of the corner. Work
thou who hast all power, and all the light, and to whom time has no secret,
and eternity no mystery : use whom thou wilt, put forth thine own labourers
and preachers and toilers in every department of Christian service ; renew
their hope, rekindle their zeal and their enthusiasm, and may they know
themselves to be the servants of men only because they are first the servants
of God. Hear us in our domestic petitions and personal desires : where
there is sickness do thou send the Comforter ; where there is weariness do
thou give rest and hope ; where eyes are blind with tears do thou drive them
all away ; and upon the shadowed house let fall some beams from heaven's
noonday. Guide the perplexed, deliver the embarrassed from their diffi-
culties, and lead the blind by a way they know not ; and at last through the
blood of the everlasting covenant may we stand before thee in the full light,
thanking God for the joy and the sorrow, the night and the day of human
life. Amen.
"I KNOW."
SOMETIMES we are told that "God is unknowable," and
there is, as we have often said, a sense in which that state-
ment is a sound bibhcal doctrine. God is a thought too great
for the created mind, but the sun is alike too great for the
created house : no house can hold all the ligh' of the sun : is
"/ know:' 4^5
there then no sun because no dwelling-place can accommodate
the whole wealth of his glory ? Does not the house receive just
so much as it can hold and use ? and is it not glorified by that
adaptation of the light ? It is the same also with the garden :
no garden can absorb all the light of the sun : is there, therefore,
no light to be absorbed ? and does the mystery of the excess
destroy the benefit of that which is available ? Suppose a garden
to have consciousness, what reasoning could be more absurd on
its part than for it to say that because it cannot entertain the
whole hospitality of the sun as shown in its streaming light,
therefore the sun is beyond recognition ; or if there is a sun at
all nothing can be known about it or done with it ? That is
precisely what the created mind sometimes does with the thought
which is best known to us by the Holy Name GOD. The mind
cannot receive all that thought, but it may be filled with as
much of the glory as is possible to its conception. The Psalmist
says, " I know that the Lord is great " (cxxxv. 5) ; "I know, O
Lord, that thy judgments are right" (cxix. 75); "I know that
the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted " (cxl. 12). It
is as if a house should say, I know that the sun is great : I know
that the sun is necessary to health ; I know that the sun gladdens
with impartial warmth the rich and the poor,* This kind of
practical knowledge may be acquired by persons who know
absolutely nothing about solar physics or the mystery of light.
It is precisely so with the idea which we represent by the term
God. We may know that he is great, that his judgments are
right, and that he espouses the cause of the afflicted, and yet
may know nothing of his essence or of the mystery of deity.
The little child plays gladly in the gladdening sunshine, and yet
knows nothing of the sun as it is known to the astronomer ; so
the heart may rise to noble emotion, and bow down itself in
adoring homage to God without comprehending all that is involved
in that holy and appalling Name. The joy of my religion is in
what I do understand, and the solemnity of my religion is not
only in that, but also in what has yet to be revealed.
"/ know that the Lord is great" That is the elementary idea.
To be God at all is to be great. The dignity of this idea is in
its simplicity. The word "great" is a word of one syllable;
426 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
yet no extension of letters could increase its meaning. The idea
that is to do the mind good must never be so small that the
mind can trifle with it. This is true of books. So long as the
reader can keep ahead of the author, anticipating him, and standing
above him in intellectual dignity and force, the book is of no
use, and after the perusal of a few pages is laid aside as altogether
unworthy of serious notice ; but given a book which is more
than itself, in which there is abundant reading between the lines,
in which every word has a colour which comes and goes as the
reader is able to discern the spirit of the author's thought,
the student is beguiled from page to page, and on concluding the
reading of the whole work, he feels that he has rather begun
the study of a library than completed the perusal of a single
volume. The same thought holds good of sermons. A sermon
is not to be a mere gathering up of words and phrases and
sentences which savour, however strongly, of religion : a sermon
is to be an appeal which the heart will answer, at least in some
of its parts, and is not less a sermon inspired by the Holy Ghost,
because it has a background and a foreground, not wholly com-
prehensible on the first hearing of the discourse. The earth
is not less a place of gardens and wheatfields because of the
firmament whi^ is above it ; without that firmament, indeed, the
earth could have neither fruit nor bread for the satisfaction of
those who inhabit it. It is even so with the sermon : there are
whole paragraphs which can be appropriated as the hungry
appropriate bread, and yet there are mysteries of thought and
possibilities of evolution which can be best symbolised by the
firmament which lifts itself infinitely above the earth on which
men live and toil, and prepare for other worlds. But the idea
is supremely true of God. To understand God would be in
reality to be equal with God. When God simply covers the
breadth of the intellect, and has nothing beyond it in the way
of mystery, then may man truly say that he has wholly con-
quered the idea of divinity, and therefore is prepared to receive
higher revelations, and to go into deeper studies than any which
can be covered by a name so exalted. God must always be
greater than any conception of greatness we have ever formed.
We must set down, when writing out our faith in firm lines and
vivid expressions, the solemn truth that there is no searching of
"/ know:* 6,2-]
God's understanding. It is by this undiscovered and undis-
coverable greatness that we are drawn onward and upward in
religious contemplation and study, and are ennobled by the
thought of the very greatness which we can never fully com-
prehend. In our spiritual training the sense of wonder must
always be struck. Imagination must veil its face with its wings
before the sudden blaze which burns in all the width of the
firmament, and makes the very planets dim by its ineffable light.
That is the mood in which reverence begins. Without that
sense of Infinitude the mind may become flippant and self-
idolatrous, may make its work a trifle, and cripple its prayer
into a wish that need not be answered. We are kept to the
level of our work by the inspiration of our wonder. We are
never inspired by that which is mean : the mountain, not the
molehill, makes men stop and breathe almost religiously. Why?
Because the mountain is great : it climbs high ; it aims to be
at the very sky ; it is more than a mountain — it is a suggestion,
a poem, an altar. Yet what is that mountain when taken in
detail ? What ten feet of it can inspire any reverence or ennoble
any thought ? It is in its accumulation that it rises from one
degree to another until it actually appeals to the imagination
with commanding authority. We must, therefore, protest against
such a so-called simplicity of religion as makes the worshipper
almost equal with God. The word " simplicity " must itself be
redefined. Simplicity must not be confounded with shallowness ;
simplicity is the last result of complication, of mystery, and of
majesty of thought ; it is the flower which expresses all the
astronomical forces which have been necessary for its creation
and completion. There are those who imagine that prayer is
simple because it is limited to the offering of mere requests, as
who should say. Give me health, give me bread, give me success,
give me wealth, give me deliverance from this awful disease
or impending calamity : all these words may be true, and yet
the soul may not have entered into the mystery and blessedness
of the meaning of prayer. There can be no true prayer apart
from deep communion with God — a reverent and humble approach
towards the recognition of his nature as infinite, wise, holy,
fatherly : when we come to put our requests into sentences,
the sentences themselves maj^ be concise, almost abrupt, and
42S THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE
certainly urgent in their tone; but they must come up not as
gathered flowers which are plucked only to die, but as living
flowers which are laying hold of the root, while the root is
clinging to an earth, which itself is holding fast by the sun.
"/ know, O Lord, that thy judgments are right" Without this
consciousness there can be no enlightened religion. A dark
superstition might be possible, but . not a religion of moral
confidence and rational joy. We must know of a surety that
righteousness is at the heart of things : in other words, that
whoever is ruler of this world he is irreconcilably opposed to
everything that is perverted, untrue, corrupt, selfish, or base in
any degree. Conscience must never be troubled by the character
of God. Given the conception: — yea, the deep and unchangeable
conviction — that God's judgments are right, then the soul can
patiently wait for their complete and final development. If a
soul could for a moment entertain the thought that God's ways
are not right, a great and darkening cloud would settle upon the
whole economy of providence, and it would be impossible for
the soul to pray. Who could pray to a God who might possibly
make a mistake, or confound moral terms, or regard the right
hand as the left, or make no distinction between light and
darkness ? Where conscience is sound in its persuasion,
absolutely unchangeable in its conviction, that at the centre of
things there is a spirit of righteousness and judgment, imagina-
tion and every other gift and faculty of the mind may reverently
await disclosures which will confirm the conviction of conscience.
It is this which makes us quiet amid tumult. We are prepared
to say to those who look on in an irreligious spirit, Yes, the
tumult is very great, the uproar is indeed deafening, a great and
terrible confusion seems to have seized upon every department
of life, and the very foundations of society are apparently out of
course ; but all that we see is on the surface, all that we
observe is part of a great process which is not yet made clear ;
what we have to do is to trust in the righteousness of God, and
to aver that, come or go what may, at eventide there shall be
light, and in the summing up of things a perfect justification of
all the processes through which God has conducted the world.
Thinking of this kind widens our knowledge of what is actually
"7 KNOWr 429
right. We cannot be truly anxious as to the rightness of God
and his government, and yet we ourselves be doing that which is
wrong, and doing it with zest and gratification. Conscience will
not act in this double manner when it is honourably treated.
Conscience may turn upon a man and say, You are most anxious
that the Judge of the whole earth should do right, you stop in
the reading of your Bible, and inquire, Is this just, is this fair,
is this right ? Now, seeing that you have made yourself into such
a judge of righteousness, and have displayed your fertile criticism
in scrutinising the purpose and the way of God, you are bound to
turn to your own life to rectify its courses, and to live as one who
is responsible to eternal rectitude. Here is the rock on which
we stand. Successful though vice may seem to be, its mouth
shall be filled with gravel, and all its teeth shall be broken.
Point to the carnival of evil, hear its loud song of lewdness and
passion, watch its whirling dance of defiant godlessness, listen
to its unholy speech, behold its open throat, hot with fire that
cannot be quenched, and you see the make-believe of true joy —
a false light that shall be put out — an excitement that being
unrestrained by reason, and uninspired by reverence, shall perish
in a reaction that shall involve the soul in the horrors of self-
contempt. Right alone is eternal. Virtue alone has no painful
recoil. Sweet prayer always brings back sweet answers. At
the last, vice biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder ;
at the last virtue blooms into a larger summer, and enters the
enjoyment of a broader heaven.
" / know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the ajflided"
Not will prevent affliction overtaking me, and reducing me to
the last point of humiliation, but will see that however great may
be my affliction it shall in no degree interfere with my integrity.
The text is thus morally stronger than at first sight it would seem
to be. Our first impression is that God is interested in a man
simply because the man is afflicted ; that is to say, God is very
pitiful and kind, and seeing a poor wayfarer overborne by the
fatigues of the day, takes notice of him, and cheers him by some
kind word of sympathy and stimulus. However true that
doctrine may be in itself, it is not the immediate doctrine of
Psalm cxl. 12. The Psalmist is still talking about right; in this
430 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
very verse he brings in the poor saying, "I know that the Lord
will maintain the cause of the afflicted and the right of the poor."
In another Psalm (ix, 4) we read, " Thou hast maintained my
right and my cause; thou satest in the throne judging right."
So we are not dealing with instances of mere pity and sympathy ;
we are in the presence of a man who has been overpowered,
impoverished, and in every way ill-treated and afflicted; and
yet God will not judge the man by the circumstances in which
he is placed, saying, Surely this must be a bad man, or these
afflictions would not have overtaken him. God will search into
the case, and understand the man's character ; and according as
that character has been sound in its purpose and aim, God
will vindicate the man, though he have no other friend in all
creation. The man himself shall be brought into liberty, and
in his blessed freedom shall lift up his voice in holy song, saying,
"This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him
out of all his troubles." We may, however, turn from this
sterner aspect of the truth, and regard God as deeply interested
in the afflictions of his people. "Whom the Lord loveth he
chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth." We
are to account it all joy when we fall into divers trials, knowing
this, that the trying of our faith worketh patience. Jesus Christ
himself taught the same soothing and encouraging doctrine,
saying, "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and perse-
cute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely,
for my sake." The Apostle Paul, gathering all his afflictions
together until they became quite an agony, said in the midst of
his intensest suffering, " We glory in tribulations also : knowing
that tribulation worketh patience." An ancient witness stands
up before the ages, and says, " Before I was afflicted I went
astray ; " and the universal testimony on the part of those who
have accepted suffering as discipline imposed by heaven is that it
was good for them to be afflicted. Without affliction we become
haughty, self-dependent, unsympathetic, selfish ; instead of being
grateful for our own health we use it for the purpose of taunting
men who are weak, and we tell them in bitter reproach that if
they had done as we have done their robustness would have
been equal to our own. Very merciful and gracious is the way
"/ know:
431
of God in the dispensation of affliction. Blessed be his name ; he
knows exactly what affliction we can endure, how much we need,
at what times it ought to give us the severest pain ; if we
accept olir afflictions in this spirit we shall almost welcome them,
knowing that however bitter the process the end is to consolidate
our faith, to brighten our hope, and to prepare us for the
infinitely glorious revelations with which God intends to enrich
us. Then the Psalmist tells us that he knows God is great, and
that God is right ; we accept the terms as indispensable to what
we may describe as the completeness of deity. But there are
senses in which these words are very hard. We acknowledge their
sublimity ; but who could live upon that which is sublime ? God
must be more than sublime, he must be tender; he must visit us
in the darkness, and his voice towards us must be accommodated
to our weakness, not being a display of his majesty or a proof
of his power to thunder in the universe, but a sign of his know-
ledge that our infirmity is very great, and our distress almost
intolerable. Here, then, we may take our stand boldly and
firmly. We acknowledge that God is unknowable in any intel-
lectual sense that is self-satisfying : the Bible, as we have said
before, is continually declaring this doctrine, and insisting upon
its importance ; but now we stand upon these three truths,
which in reality are one — God is great, God is right, God is
pitiful. These doctrines are sufficient for all the purposes of
this life ; when we are prepared to receive broader revelations of
the divine essence and majesty they will not be withheld from
us. Meanwhile let us keep the commandments ; cling lovingly
and with growing intelligence to Jesus Christ and all the solemn
truths involved in his priesthood, and let us feel how blessed is
that servant who is found ready to receive his Lord whenever
his Lord may come, and to enter upon the enjoyment of fuller
light, and discharge the duties of wider service. Let us write
upon our houses, our churches, our literature, our whole life, the
sublime and ennobling motto, God is great, God is right, God is
good.
PRAYER.
Almighty God, our hearts cry out for thy heart as for a place of sweet and
secure rest. Open the door and bid us come ! The sin which we thought
was dead was but asleep, and it has stirred up its cruel power more mightily
than ever, and has thrown us down in the face of the sun and mocked us in
our vain resistance. This cruel sin will get the better of us, not wounding
us only and filling our own soul with pain, but will utterly destroy us, if
thou dost not come and save us. But thou wilt come ; even 410W thou art
at the door ; even now the angels of God are round about us. Thou surely
lovest us, yea even his sins seem to endear the sinner to thee, if but his
heart know its own bitterness, and there be one word of repentance on his
tongue. We repent and then we sin again ; we renounce the enemy and
then we fly into his arms. "What can reach such guilt but the blood of
Christ ? It is in vain that we tarry at the rivers of earth, v^^e hasten,
impelled by fear and hope to the great Cross, the Cross of Christ, the mighty,
the infinite, the only Saviour of mankind. Why dost thou spare us ? Is
there yet upon us some broken image of thyself? Amid all this ruin dost
thou see one line of beauty ? Surely thine own eye alone can see it, for it
is an eye of most piteous compassion. Speak to us some comfortable word,
and leave us not without one token of thy love. We want to know more
fully the riches of thy truth. What is truth ? Who can tell what is hidden
in that glowing mystery? May our ignorance make us modest; may thy
promise make us hopeful. Oh for clearer insight, for keener sympathy, for
more constant love. Lord, hear us ; blessed Saviour, send us answers that
shall make us glad. Look upon us all as the sun looks upon the whole
earth; let the cloud of thy bless- ng gather thickly and fall upon us according
to our several need, and we shall be made glad with pure and exulting joy.
Spare us yet a little longer; yet. Lord, why should we pray thus? Were
it not better to pass on, to stand in the light, and to be clothed with the
liberty of a perfected redemption ? We call this desire to remain our love
cf life, only because we do r^ot know what life is ; it may not be our love of
life, it may be but our fear of death. Lord abolish death in us; let it have
no place in our outlook and forecast ; may we be so filled with Christ that
we can see nothing but our immortality. Lord hear us.' Lord keep us.
Lord abide with us till this night-life be gone, and the morning be fully
come. Amen.
Psalms cxlvi.-cl.
THE GRAND DOXOLOGY.
OW could the Book of Psalms end but in this way ?
H
Psalms cannot end in prose. Whether the arrangement
is mechanical or inspired, it is the best possible. There is a
Psalms cxlvi.-cl.] THE GRAND DOXOLOGY. 433
fitness of things, and that fitness is realised in this peroration.
It is as if a great broad river had suddenly become a resounding
cascade ; these five psalms are the final cataract. The Psalmist
will have everything pressed into the choir. He will not have
a small band. He ranges creation through, and brings every-
body and everything into the orchestra. There goes out from
him a great sound, " Praise ye the Lord." Not only will he
deliver this exhortation, he will exemplify what he means, and
therefore he continues, " Praise the Lord, O my soul." We
must be on fire ourselves if we would set other people on fire.
" While I live will I praise the Lord : I will sing praises unto
my God while I have any being." He will have all instruments
pressed into this service. He knows all the instruments by
name ; he says. There are three sorts of instruments at least :
the wind instruments, which a man seems to play with his soul
— " the Lord breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," and
with that heaven-given afflatus the truly praising soul addresses
itself to the instrument; and there are stringed instruments — as
the harp and lute — to which a man speaks through his hands,
the soul running out at the finger-tips ; there are also percussive
instruments which a man must smite, as the drum, and the
tambourine, the cymbals, the triangles, and instruments many.
So he would have skilled fingers that know how to operate upon
stringed instruments, and skilled strong fingers and hands — quite
a muscular service — to make the drum throb, and take a share in
this offering of hallelujah and acclaim unto God. He must have
read all the Psalms before he wrote these five. He seems to
have written all the Psalms as well as read them. There is a
way of reading a book, which is the next best thing to having
written it. To hear the book well read, to hear your own letter
well uttered ! There is an authorship of reading. It would
seem as if this man had taken up all the great psalms and had
rewritten them in his heart, and had come out at last with an
appropriate conclusion.
Tn these five psalms we have great burst of praise. The
instruments were made for the psalms. Everything was made
for the Church. Perversions many there have been, and pro-
bably will be, but they are perversions, and must be recognised
VOL. XII. • j»8
434 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalms cxlvi.-cl
and stigmatised as such. No bad man has a right to any
instrument of music. He holds it by no right that can be
established in the court of equity ; he does not know how to
handle that thing of beauty, he does not know how to speak to
that secret of sweet sounds. There is nothing more horrible
than that a blaspheming man should sing at a sacred concert.
There is no irony so unpardonable. Christian men should not
support it. Christian service should be rendered by Christian
people. For a man who has been guilty of anything that is
vilely wrong to sing in any of the great oratorios is a lie seven
times told ; a black and most pestilent thing — quite a horrible
outrage to taste, to decency, to the genius of piety. Some have
supposed that the Psalmist really did not desire to have all these
instruments, but that he is simply struggling or working his way
towards a great human appeal, namely, Praise ye the Lord :
especially let Israel praise the Lord ; he is simply trying to
construct a great altar of Hebrew music. Grammatically that
may be partly right ; in a narrow sense of the terms, the Psalmist
may have been fixing his thoughts wholly upon the human
temple, and when he calls for a universal song his universe may
have been restricted to Israel. Some men do not know the
meaning of their own words. Great religious utterances have
to be interpreted to the speakers themselves. Isaiah might pro-
fitably listen to a modern discourse upon his own prophecies,
and be told what he meant when he used his own mother-tongue.
I prefer, therefore, to take the larger construction, and to believe
that the Psalmist was seeking to press everything into God's
service. He saw that the universe itself is silent music, a dumb
poem, a most marvellous miracle in the expression of fitness,
interdependence, harmony. Said he. This great universe wants
but one little spark to fall upon it, and the whole will rise as if
in flames of praise. Man has nothing to do in the way of
improving the universe. Poor man ! he can but take a little
part of the universe to pieces, and call it science. He cannot
improve the rotundity of the earth, he cannot add a beam to the
moon. The Psalmist, looking upon these things from a great
height, said. All this means something more than has yet been
articulated : this silence is supreme eloquence, this is all that
prose can do : God is waiting for the man whom he will inspire
Psalms cxlvi.-cl.] THE GRAND DOXOLOGY. 435
with the spirit of poetry, and if that man will let fall one short
syllable on this miracle of prose it will become poetry infinite,
ineffable. It will be a sad thing when a man can tell all he
means. Do not believe that the grammarian can exhaust the
Bible. Do not entertain the thought that the Bible-writers knew
one ten-thousandth part of what they were writing about. They
were instruments, they were the clerks of God, they were but
scribes hired to do the work of human education. All things
are tending in the direction of universal praise. If this were
mere reverie, we might applaud it as such, and dismiss it ; but
all through these five concluding psalms there runs a line of
sternest logic, boldest, truest, sweetest reasoning. This is so
with the whole Bible. All its flowers are grown upon rocks ;
far below the fecundant soil lies the stable masonry. The
flowers are thousands upon thousands, squared and cubed, and
then redoubled and multiplied again ; but under all there lies
the base of truth.
Shall we join this praise? Which God shall we worship in
song ? The Psalmist says, I will give you his full address : this
is the God " which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that
therein is." That is force, energy : how can I blow the instrument,
or strike the string, or smite the drum in praise of force, though
it be set out in strong typography on the printed page ? Then
saith the Psalmist, You have interrupted me, that is not the full
address of the Most High ; he but begins there, the continuance
thereof is this, " Which keepeth truth for ever : which executeth
judgment for the oppressed." That is majesty, moral, spiritual,
sublime. We might raise a tremulous hymn to such a Personality,
but we should almost have to look down whilst we sang the
adoring psalm. But, said the Psalmist, you have interrupted me,
that is not the full address of the Most High — " Which giveth food
to the hungry : " now he is domestic, companionable, approach-
able. ** The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind : " now how
tender, gentle, pitiful ! " The Lord raiseth them that are bowed
down:" then he is almost like one of them. "Praise ye the
Lord." Certainly 1 we must. We can adore majesty, and run
away from it because it may overpower us by its intolerable
sublimity, but if God feed the hungry, open the eyes of the blind,
436 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE. [Psalms cxlvi.-cL
and raise them that are bowed down, we can look at him in the
face whilst we are singing his hymns. But, saith the Psalmist,
that is not all : " The Lord preserveth the strangers : " why,
we are all strangers when we are two miles from the beaten
track. "He relieveth the fatherless "and widow:" what! the
God of suns and constellations and universes on which no
measuring-line has been laid, does he care for the widow and
the orphan in their affliction ? " Praise ye the Lord." Here is
an end of ecstasy. This is no sentimental rapture ; this is a
reply, praise answering love, — a glorious consent, a concert
which the universe approves. Herein must our musicaf education
be perfected. An impious singer ought to be frowned down,
avoided, and left desolate. It will be a sad thing when we
admire the music and neglect the sentiment. The choir con-
stituted by the Psalmist is a choir of appreciative, grateful,
responsive hearts. Nor can he get away altogether from this
line of annotation. He puts the same thought in many different
ways. He does not neglect the majesty of the Lord ; he
represents the Lord as telling the number of the stars, and
calling them all by their names ; as covering the heaven with
clouds, preparing rain for the earth, making grass to grow upon
the mountains : he represents God as giving snow like wool,
scattering the hoarfrost like ashes, casting forth his ice like
morsels, and coming upon the universe with a cold before which
it perishes. Then he runs parallel with all this, a line more than
golden, a line more than loving : " Great is our Lord, and of
great power : his understanding is infinite : " hear how the
trumpets blare and roar as they utter that glorious sentiment 1
Now " he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their
wounds." The Lord is the doctor of the family, the physician
of the soul ; as if neglecting the stars awhile, he comes down to
human hearts.
Let us not then say that the Psalmist is a mere contemplatist
or rhapsodist; he is a man who recognises the providential side
of life, and will have a hymn appropriate thereto. If we made
our providences the beginning of our psalms our psalms would
never end. " He also exalteth the horn of his people, the praise
of all his saints ; even of the children of Israel, a people near
Psalms cxlvi.-cl.] THE GRAND DOXOLOGY. 437
unto him." *'The Lord taketh pleasure in his people; he will
beautify the meek with salvation." This is the providential
aspect. Here is God working in human history. Here the Lord
is building his own monument of love, and writing his own
memorial of tender mercy, and the Psalmist calls us around this
memorial and this monument that we may join him in holy
rapturous song. We should count our family mercies before
we determine where our hymn shall begin and end. We are
poor reckoners if we begin with our disadvantages. We do not
mean to end well ; we are trying, however subtly or unconsciously,
to get up a case against the goodness and mercy of God. We
should begin at the other end : with the sunshine and the music,
with all little things and great things that make up the best
aspect of our home-life. Then when the Psalmist says, " I am
going to sing," we shall say, So am I : let us sing together that
we may create an opportunity for others ; let us announce our
intention far and wide, and mayhap some will sing as followers
who could not well begin the holy tune themselves. Thus
praise becomes contagious, thus song begets song, until the whole
universe is full of melody. There are some who have never
sung. By the term "sung" we do not here mean anything that
is technical or mechanical. There is a singing without words,
there is a silent singing ; there is a way of singing by sympathy.
Sometimes people think they are not singing unless they can
hear their own voices ; certainly to uplift the voice is one way
of singing : some can sing better through sympathy, they feel
that others are expressing what they wanted to say, and in the
expression of others they find rest and joy. Whether in this
way or in that, every man should sing. Every man should
recognise the providences of God. You were brought low, and
he helped you ; you were in the jungle of a tremendous thicket,
and he relieved you ; you were trying to thread your way
through a labyrinth, and you found yourself coming back again
and again upon your own steps, and he gave j'ou the clue, and
in an hour or two you were out at the wicket-gate free again,
and you met the Psalmist there; for that Psalmist stands for us at
every turn in life, and he said, " Praise ye the Lord ; " and if you
had not instantly answered in song, personal or sympathetic, you
would have proved yourself unworthy of the divine deliverance.
438 2 HE PEOPLE'S BIBLE, [Psalms clxvi.-cL
The Psalmist indicates a retributive element in the service of
praise : " Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, and a
two-edged sword in their hand ; to execute vengeance upon the
heathen, and punishments upon the people ; to bind their kings
with chains, and their nobles with fetters of iron." These
words have been fruitful of oppression. They have been
misused by nearly all sections of the Church. No one section
can blame another, saying, "You have perverted these words,"
because we are all in one condemnation. We have mistaken
fury for reasoning : we have forgotten that the democracy is
heathenism, if it be not educated and morally inspired. It is
not our business to strike off the ears of men, nor to throw chains
upon kings, and fetters of iron upon nobles. They have to come
down — that is written in the books that cannot be burned — but
they must come down otherwise; not by violence, but by the
uplifting of the general mass of the people ; so there shall not be
so much a coming down of some as the raising up of all ; then the
new democracy shall be the true aristocracy. Let us beware of
religious oppression above all other. No one man, as we have
often seen, has all the truth, nor ought to set himself up as the
papal administrator of all that is right and wrong in intellectual
beliefs. This man has part of the truth, and his brother has
another part; they should meet, and mutually contribute; and
the third man should add his share, and every other man
contribute his quota, that from the sum-total of humanity we may
get the sum-total of the revelation of God. You do not improve
your oppression by singing to it. You do not make murder less
murder because you dance your way to the scene of execution.
Keep the high praises of God for holy hearts and holy mouths.
THUS ENDS THE PSALTER-THE ANTHEM-
BOOK OF THE CHURCH.
HANDFULS OF PURPOSE,
FOR ALL GLEANERS.
" Thy blessing is upon thy people.'" —
Psalm iii. 8.
The reading should be, " Let thy
blessing be upon thy people." The
Psalmist is not stating a fact, he is
rather praying for the Church. David's
was a pastoral soul. A fine tone of
solicitude runs through all his supplica-
tions and desires. But that which is
literally a prayer may at the same time
be also a fact, and in this case is proved
to be so. Taking the text therefore as
a fact, we are reminded that God has a
"people," — a community specifically
his own ; the reference is not to the
total humanity, but to humanity speci-
alised and set apart, humanity sanctified.
By God's "blessing" we are not to
understand a merely external sunshine,
a light which floods the path and makes
the physical man radiant : we are rather
to understand a light that fills the soul
with morning, and that gives promise
of a nightless day. When God's bless-
ing is upon a man it does not follow
that the man is relieved from chastise-
ment. The contrary doctrine is distinctly
laid down in Scripture, — " Whom the
Lord loveth he chasteneth." A man
often scourges his own child when he
would not scourge another, simply be-
cause the child is his own, and he has
the child's advantage at heart. No one
can come into the church for the sake
of the blessing. Then would church
communion become a kind of com-
mercial relationship. We do not come
for the blessing ; we get the blessing in
coming. God's blessing is often a dis-
cipline ; we do not set down on some
green knoll and contemplate the land-
scape, nor do we bury ourselves in
velvet sward and look up to the blue
sky with the poet's contemplativeness ;
because the blessing of God is upon us
we are to arise and pursue, we are to
take the prey with a strong hand, and
to show ourselves skilful workmen in
the Lord's service. The Lord's blessing
is therefore an inspiration as well as a
benediction. Know that the blessing
of God is upon you when you are going
to do more work. Be sure that the
divine blessing is resting largely and
lovingly on you when you fed you
must give away your substance with
both hands that poverty may be relieved
and that knowledge may be increased
on the earth. When you are inclined
to shut yourself up in elegant solitude,
and to contemplate all life from a dis-
tance which deprives it of vividness, be
quite sure that the blessing of the Lord
is withdrawn from you. God's blessing
is not set upon people with the view of
discouraging others, but with the view
of encouraging them towards divine
fellowship and divine confidence.
440
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
*' Thou hast put gladness in my heart,
more than ?'« the time that their
corn and their wine increased^ —
Psalm iv. 7,
Let us regard this as setting side by
side physical and spiritual possessions.
Oh the one side we have what the
worldly man values most, namely, corn
and wine, representing all manner of
physical and natural bounty : on the
other hand we fin^l heart-gladness, a
peculiar music in the soul, a tender and
subtle joy which cannot be represented
by earthly symbols. Both the bounties
are supposed to be associated with
"gladness." The worldly man looks
upon his corn and wine, and his whole
nature laughs with selfish merriment ;
laying his hand upon his bounty he
says, This will stand me in good stead
when the day is rainy, and the winter
has blocked up the thoroughfares. In
the case of the spiritual man he lifts up
his eyes to heaven and says. Although
I have nothing in my hands, I have
God in my heart, a source of strength,
an inspiration to labour, an encourage-
ment in all goodness ; all the exceeding
great and precious promises are singing
to me like so many angel-birds sent
from heaven to give me foretaste of the
music that makes the home of the saved
perfect in happiness. We should grow
away from the appreciation of mere
natural and commercial bounty. Of
course it has its place in civilisation ;
for the body it is essential ; it is right
and beautiful to cultivate the earth, and
God's blessing is upon all those who till
the ground for his sake ; but all the
bounty of nature cannot touch the soul,
educationally, sympathetically, progres-
sively, except in some very distant and
emblematic way. Our riches are in
our consciousness of the divine presence,
m our access to the divine throne, in
our spiritual ideas, in our spiritual
penetration, in all the attributes, ele-
ments, and forces that constitute the
identity of the soul. How are our
memories stored with divine promises?
What hope have we for the scene be-
yond the earth? What are our soul's
companionships? What quality of in-
tercourse is our supreme delight ?
W^hen we can answer these question';
satisfactorily we are rich ; we have bread
to eat that the world knoweth not of :
we quench our thirst with the wine of
divine love ; and our soul knows no
pang of hunger. Other property can
be consumed. Other properly can go
down in value. Other property can be
stolen. But the property of the soul-
the inheritance of the mind — those gi eat
and glorious ideas which drive away all
darkness from the horizon, these are in
very deed "unsearchable riches," the
very wealth of God. All these gifts
come through well-defined processes
They are not imposed upon men like
burdens : they grow up in the souls of
men like divinely inspired and directed
comforts. Whoso does his duty, whoso
suffers bravely and uncomplainingly,
whoso says. In all this sorrow there is
a hidden joy, will have more than corn
and wine, will have the very peace of
God as an imperishable treasure and
defence.
^^ For thou. Lord, wilt bless the righteous ;
with favour wilt thou compass him
as with a shield." — PsALM v. 12.
The word " shield " refers to a shield
so long and large as to be meant for one
who is of gigantic stature ; it was indeed
intended not only to protect part of the
soldier, but to defend the whole body
against harm. It is said of Luther that
when he was asked where he would
find shelter if his patrons should desert
him, answered, " Under the shield of
heaven." Notice that it is always cha-
racter on which the blessing of God
rests. God will "bless the righteous,"
HANDFULS OF PURPOSE:*
44J
will bless pure character, will not for-
sake uprightness of soul, will follow
with his favour the life that rests in
him and looks to him for law as well
as for consolation. We need not
trouble ourselves about the def'^nce if
we make an earnest business of en-
deavouring to produce the character ;
in other words, if we endeavour daily
with constancy of prayer and practice
to become " righteous." The picture
of the text is that of a man who is
shielded all over, — verily compassed ^'xXh.
a shield ; we are at liberty to strain the
figure, because the meaning is that we
are to be defended by God at every
point and on every s'de, from head to
foot, behind and before, so that there
shall be no place accessible to the
enemy. Beautiful is the idea that
favour or grace is to be the encompass-
ing shield. There shall be no burden
in bearing this defence. It is not duty,
it is not discipline, it is not self-immola-
tion that supplies the shield ; it is God's
grace, God's tenderness, God's gentle-
ness. God is equally strong at every
point, by the very necessity of his
Godhead ; his tenderness is as in-
vincible as his almightiness. His
tears are as terrible to the enemy as
are his thunderbolts. The soul that
reposes in God can say lovingly and
gratefully, " Thy gentleness hath made
me great." Those who are in Christ
are continually exclaiming, " By grace
are we saved." We stand and live, we
act and suffer, not in the omnipotence of
God as an abstract attribute, but in the
love of God, which is his almightiness
in its most tender and helpful attitude.
If the Lord is with us, who can be
against us ? If we are right, how' can
we be weak ? If righteousness could
finally go down in any conflict, God
himself would go down in that collapse.
The righteous God is the Almighty
God. Let us therefore trust him with
loving hearts, never questioning either
his ability or his willingness to inter-
pose for us according to our varying
necessity.
" My di' fence is of God, which saveth the
upright in heart: — Psalm vii. 10.
This follows the previous text with
remarkable propriety. The text might
read, "My shield is upon God;" in
other words, God is my shield-bearer.
"On God is cast
My defence, and in him lies,
In him who, both just and wise,
Saves the upright at heart at last."
This is Milton's translation. Here again
we come upon the vital element of
character. Perhaps a distinction may
be drawn here, apparently fine yet not
without a large measure of reality. Not
only do we read of the upright, but of
the upright in heart : there may be a
formal uprightness ; a conventional
behaviour ; a mere attitude of morality ;
on all this no blessing rests ; but where
the heart in its main purpose seeks to
be right and true, seeks to fashion itself
upon the will of God, and to obey the
statutes of God, then God himself is
the shield-bearer of such a character,
and in order to injure that character
God himself must first be overthrown.
We are to remember that God himself
judges the righteous. He seems to
come to us every day to know how our
character is bearing the wear and tear
of life. The rule is not Once righteous
always righteous ; we are judged daily.
The Psalmist himself prays, "Judge me,
O Lord, according to my righteousness,
and according to mine integrity that
is within me." He adds, " The right-
eous God trieth the hearts and reins."
Here, then, we are called to self-
examination, to daily culture, and to all
the processes which involve the largest
and fullest education of the soul. Do
not let us defend ourselves. Self-defence
is needless in the case of the righteous.
442
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
His cause is hidden with God ; the
Almighty holds his cause in his hands,
and will defend him with omnipotence
alike of strength and of wisdom. We
lose time by self-defence. We lose
our lives in trying to gain them. If
we would but do our duty and leave
our defence with God, we should have
peace like a river, and our righteousness
would be for fulness and strength like
the waves of the sea.
" The nwds of the Lord are pure
words." — Psalm xii. 6.
Purity would seem to be impossible
upon earth. Even where we have divine
treasure we have it in earthen vessels,
and the danger is that the vessels shall
in some degree corrupt the treasures.
All human words are tainted with
alloy. Even when men make their
best promises there is of necessity an
element of selfishness in the pledge.
If the heart is deceitful, the words must
partake of the quality of the heart.
There is an unconscious deceitfulness,
there is an unconscious self-deception.
We may mean every word we say, and
yet our deceit may be more subtle in
its action than our intellectual energy.
The intellect goes out to do some work,
and does it earnestly and well, but no
intellect can keep pace with the subtlety
and swiftness of moral action. The
heart can outrun the head. It is cha-
racteristic of divine words that they
are themselves divine. They are as
silver melted seven times in a furnace
of earth. God has spoken nothing in
mere excess for the sake of empliasis.
In the case of the divine promises, it
is simply impossible that the emphasis
can be equal to the meanini^. We can
test the purity of the divine word by
submitting it to daily practice. The
pureness of divine messages is not an
intellectual question but is almost ex-
clusively a moral inquiry. How do
the words of God go down into the life ?
How do they stand the strain of tempta-
tion, and self-expenditure, and the daily
conflict of life ? The words of God are
few, because they are pure. God does
not need to multiply words in order to
assure us of his earnestness. Eloquence
isoftenasign of insincerity. Mere fluency
is always to be distrusted, because life
itself does not flow out in so easy and
unimpeded a strain. The speech of
life should represent the tragedy of
life, — itsupsand downs, its swift fluctua-
tions, its sudden surprises, its ftars, and
its hopes. The speech of a wise man
is a skilfully painted texture. The
continuance of the Bible as the highest
and strongest factor in civilisation
depends wholly on the pureness of
the divine words. Because of their
pureness they shall endure for ever.
"How long wilt thou forget me, O
Lord ? for ever ? hoiv long wilt
tliou hide thy face from me?" —
Psalm xiii. i.
He who would see how swiftly the
moods of the soul can change should
study this thirteenth Psalm. In some
half-dozen verses the soul goes through
all the gamut of spiritual experience.
The first tone is one of despair, the last
tone is one of high song — "I will sing
unto the Lord, because he hath dealt
bountifully with me." This may be
a parenthesis in the history of David ;
about that time when his life was in
daily peril, when he dare scarcely close
his eyes in momentary sleep, be ause
his sleep might be his death. Nothing
makes us more conscious of time than
pain. The darkness is longer than the
day. Deprivation always develops
consciousness, and makes the soul feel
the oppressiveness of a heavy burden.
To a man in perfect health, engaged
in the usual and happy avocations of
life, there seems to be no time ; he is
"HANDFULS OF PURPOSED
443
wholly unconscious of any painfulness
in the passing of the successive hours.
But let a man be in pain, and every
tick of the clock is an eternity. There
is a quality of punishment, there is
also a quality of time ; the man who
suffers is conscious of eternal torment ;
to tell him that his torment will be
over in a few minutes is hardly to
relieve his case at all, for every moment
that comes is as long as a lingering
day. It is instructive to remember,
whilst we are consoling ourselves with
the comforts of God, that in spiritual
experience there are times of positive
blankness and darkness. We are then
inclined to blame God, because we
think the acticn is wholly on his side.
There are times when the soul is quite
sure of its own rectitude, and then it
begins to dwell painfully and almost
resentfully upon the mysteries of divine
providence. Instead of saying, How
long wilt thou forget me, O Lord ? we
should say, What have I done to bring
upon me this sense of divine neglect?
Is the divine Being capricious ; has he
gone away simply for the purpose of
afflicting me, and making me feel my
weakness and littleness? Have I
grieved the Spirit of God? Has he
not retired because there has been in
my heart unexpressed rebellion against
his dominion? Happy is he who is
conscious that the divine face has
turned away from him. When we
suppose that God is still gracious to
us, notwithstanding our self-contradic-
tions and moral wanderings, we have
lost that sensitiveness which is the
truest test of real spiritual-minded ness.
To miss God, to cry out for God, to
desire his return, all these emotions
have indeed their painful aspect ; at
the same time they should be accepted
as proofs that the soul is still conscious
of its need of God, and is restless until
he returns.
", . . The saints that are in the
earth." — PsALM xvi. 3.
Take this as indicating the mixed
character of human society. Even if
we had no Bible it would be impossible
to deny that human society is com-
posed of conflicting and irreconcilable
elements. We find in the same com-
munity honesty and dishonesty, sim-
plicity and duplicity, faithfulness and
faithlessness, generosity and selfishness.
The Bible does not create these dis-
tinctions ; it recognises them. We have
magnanimous men, and men of little
mind : on every side we see men who
take large and generous views of life,
and men whose views of life are small
and suspicious. Why, then, is it im-
possible that there should be men to
whom the word " saint " should be
applied? By "saints" understand
holy men, separated men, men who
live and move and have their being in
God, men who test everything by
divine standards. Has there ever
been a time when the earth has been
totally void of saints? By saints we
are not to understand men who are
perfect, but men whose aim is to dis-
cover God and to obey God. A saint
is no good in any final sense. He is
only good in his purpose, in his relations
to other men, and in his aspirations
towards God. Beside the holiness of
God there is no purity. God chargeth
his angels with folly, and the heavens
are not clean in his sight. Yet,
according to the common use of lan-
guage, and according to a very high
moral standard, there are moral men,
honest men, upright men, saints,
peculiarly and distinctively men who
draw their life and their inspiration
from God. The eyes of the Lord are
upon the righteous. Say ye to the
righteous. It shall be well with him.
They shall be mine, saith the Lord,
in that day when I number up my
444
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
jewels. There is no indiscrimirateness
in the jurigment of God. The Lord
separateth men as a shepherd divideth
his sheep from the goats. Continually
the Lord distinguishes between good
and evil, light and darkness, and his
iudgment is directed according to the
character of those who are set before
him. To the righteous heaven itself
is small ; to the unrighteous all punish-
ment is eternal. The saints are the
salt of the earth. The saints are the
light of the world. The saints are
the security of the world. For the
sake of ten righteous men, who can
tell how many cities the Lord is now
sparing? Who can tell how much we
are indebted even for physical advant-
ages to the praying souls in the neigh-
bourhood in which we live? Life is
not the flat and superficial thing which
atheism would have us believe ; it is
profound, subtle, infinite ; the elements
and forces which it touches are beyond
all reckoning. So long as there are
good men upon the earth, the earth
will be precious in the sight of God.
Let us rejoice when the godly are
multiplied, for in their increase is there
multiplication of prayer and multipli-
cation of holy service.
"... Marvellous lovmgkindness." —
Psalm xvii. 7.
The word "lovingkindness " would
have been enough by itself, yet here is
the word "marvellous" attached to it
as if to help out the wholeness of its
meaning. We read in another place of
the marvellous goodness of God. We
read also that God did great and mar-
vellous works in the field of Zoan.
The finest expression of this kind we
find in the speech of Paul, wherein he
speaks of the " marvellous light " of the
Gospel. It was not light only, but
marvellous light. There was a dis-
tinctiveness of glory about it which
dazzled the eyes of the soul. This is
the experience of every man who comes
into close and vital association with
God. He is continually surprised at
the bounty of heaven, at the tenderness
of the divine fatherhood, at the large-
ness of the divine love ; surprise follows
surprise in ever-growing amazement,
because imagination is left behind, and
expression utterly fails when the good-
ness of God is contemplated. We must
not reckon God's providences amongst
common things. They do not belong
to a class, as if they were parts of a
whole. They are individual, outstand-
ing, altogether unique and special. So
the Bible must not be set in a row with
other books, it must have no common
enumeration ; for ever it must be The
Book, the one Book, the only Book,
the marvellous Book. We cannot over-
take God and enter into competition
with him : we light our candle, but we
must not hold it to the sun. The candle
itself, could it speak, would say when
the sun arose upon it, This is a marvel-
lous light ! So say all the stars, as they
retire from the majesty of the advancing
morning. Let us glory in the specialty
of divine communications and heavenly
revelations.
" With the pure thou wilt shew thyself
pure ; and with the fi'oward thou
wilt shew thyself froward^ —
Psalm xviii. 26.
God is to us what we are to God.
This is the explanation of all difficulty,
and it is also the secret of all spiritu.il
growth. It is in harmony with what
Christ says, "Blessed are the pure in
heart : for they shall see God." The
pure mind finds purity everyv^'here.
The corrupt mind everywhere finds
corruption. Man is mirrored by all
nature. If we go into the Bible with
"HANDFULS OF PURPOSED
445
the heart of a little child, we shall
come out of it rich with flowers and
fruits. If we go into the Bible in
a merely critical spirit, for the express
purpose of finding fault, we shall return
from our studies loaded with discre-
pancies, difficulties, mysteries, and ob-
jections of every kind. Let the pure
mind review the way of Providence in
history, and everywhere it will find in-
dications of purpose, discipline, and
ultimate harmony and sanctification.
Let the mere faultfinder read any history,
and he will grow indignantly eloquent
upon the inequalities of life, and upon
the consequent favouritism of God.
The word ' ' froward " may be regarded
as meaning twisted or perverse. The
froward mind is twisted round, is
crooked, is directly opposed to the
whole idea of being straight or upright.
What can such a mind see in nature, in
history, or in revelation, but something
that reflects itself? The lesson to us is
to keep our minds in a right condition.
To bring the mind into a right condition
the heart must be first put into right
relation to God. The heart governs
the mind. We not only lose the bless-
ings of divine revelation by having a
froward mind, we lose all the teachings
of life, all the benefits of trustful com-
munion, and all the repose of perfect
confidence in each other's sinceriiy. A
perverted mind is a suspicious mind.
Suspicion never enriched the soul with
a single thought. Suspicion inflicts
deadly injustice on all upon whom
it falls. Not only, therefore, is there
a religious bearing to this text, there
is a personal and social bearing, a
family and ccmmercial bearing, a natural
and artistic bearing. As a man thinketh
in his heart, so is he. When the mind
is pure, all nature will become of kindred
quality.
^^ Some trust in chariots, and some in
horses: but we w'll remember the
name of the Lord our GodV —
Psalm xx. 7.
In the Hebrew poetry the word
"trust "is omitted. The literal trans-
lation has been represented thus : These
in chariots, and these on horses ; but we
in the na?ne of Jehovah our God make
boast. The circumstances under which
the text was written probably pointed
to a Syrian war. Syria rejoiced in the
number of her horses and chariots. The
true Israel are upright in soul, are
pictured as beholding all the glittering
and prancing host, and as setting up
confidence in the name of God in op-
position to such physical resources and
securities. It is possible for men to
put their trust in the merely material.
But riches make to themselves wings
and flee away. The strong man is
daily weakenmg; the mightiest is but
hastening to his tomb. All nature is
itself a protest against putting confi-
dence in its resources. The hills
crumble ; the sea makes inroad upon
the rocks ; the winter exposes the caves
of the forest. Nature will not permit
false alliances with herself. She pro-
claims herself to be but a type or
emblem of higher things ; every separate
feature of nature points to the creating
and sustaining Hand ; we cannot there-
fore make nature a party to our sin or
our folly. Rightly interpreted, nature
fights for God. The stars in their
courses fought against Sisera. The
hailstones were part of the artillery of
heaven when the enemy dared Jehovah
to battle. The nature of the trust is
determined by the quality of the object
that is trusted in. If we are trusting in
something that is itself fickle or transi-
tory, our confidence must partake of its
qualities. He who trusts in the Eternal
eternally safe. He has no need to
reckon or compute or arrange as to
446
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
contingencies and possibilities ; he says,
God is my refuge and strength, there-
fore will not I fear, though the earth be
removed, and though the mountains be
carried into the midst of the sea." Doom
is written upon every part of nature.
When the great stones of the temple
were pointed out by the disciples, Jesus
instantly told them that in a short time
not one stone would be left upon another.
Though we mount up to the heavens
and make our nest in the stars, yet
shall God pursue us and tear us away
from our false refuges. Why should
we live a life of folly by trusting for
eternal security to things which are
themselves temporary ? Let us allow
that they are good for a season : they
are momentary conveniences : they have
their high and beneficent uses : but
being in themselves temporal, they
must of necessity go down by mere
flux of time. W'e are not to trust in
the name of the Lord simply for self-
protection. We are not to make a mere
convenience of God. They who re-
member the name of the Lord should
prove their remembrance by their cha-
racter. It is blasphemy to trust God
in extremity, and then to serve ourselves
when the extremity is overpast. Thus,
again and again, and at every point, in
our perusal of Biblical history, we come
down to the solemn and abiding question
of character. What are we ? What is
our supreme purpose in life ? What
are we in relation to God when there
is no fear, when no danger threatens,
and when everything seems to be going
according to our own disposition ? The
Psalmist, speaking of chariots and
horses, says, " They are brought down
and fallen." . Speaking of those who
remember the name of the Lord their
God, he sa)S, "They are risen and
stand upright." The picture is very
vivid. It is that of one army pitched
against another, and the one army
thrown down into the dust and trodden
upon by the army that has not lost a
man. Blessed are they who fight under
the divine banner and who trust to a
righteous cause, for at eventide they
shall bring home the victory.
*^ His glory is great in thy salvation" —
Psalm xxi. 5.
In this psalm the poet is giving thanks
for victory. The twentieth and twenty-
first Psalms may refer to the same event.
Both these compositions are part-songs.
They are also choral. The soldiers are
returning from war, and are met by a
chorus of maidens shouting praise to
the delivering God. The poetry is not
equal to the moral enthusiasm of the
occasion. We are called upon to con-
template God's glory as being great in
human salvation. We thus enjoy the
basis and the application of the thought.
It would seem to be beneath Almighty
God to care for a world so small and
foolish as ours. It is not for us to
estimate even our own worth. It does
not become us to say that the world is
insignificant, mean, or worthless ; it is
the work of God ; what God has thought
it worth his while to make, he may
well think it worth his while to redeem.
We do not see the whole world, nor do
we comprehend all the issues of its dis-
cipline and nurture. When Jesus sees
the travail of his soul he shall be satis-
fied. To save one soul is glory enough
for any mortal man. What must it be
to save the souls of all men, the souls
of the ages and centuries incomputable?
It is the delight of God to save, to
redeem, to construct ; the function of
the enemy is to overthrow, to weaken,'
to debase, and to bring all life into dis-
honour. The course which the enemy
has taken is the easier, since it is always
easier to destroy than to construct. There
is joy in the presence of the angels of
God over one sinner that repenteth, more
than over ninety and nine just persons.
'' HANDFULS OF PURPOSE:'
447
which need no repentance. What joy
shall there be when the whole world
is brought to Christ as his prey taken
in the ficht, taken at the spear-point !
We glorify God by our goodness. God
does not exist to be glorified in any
sense of being merely hailed and saluted
by songs and rapturous applause. When
we are most quiet we may be most
really glorifying God. By meekness,
by pureness, by gentleness, by quiet
spiritual wisdom, by accepting the lot
of life in a spirit of .self-sacrifice, we
may be bringing true glory to God. Do
not think of the glory of God in any
merely magnificent sense. We must
change our definition of magnificence.
In the sight of heaven it may be mag-
nificent to be pooi; in spirit, gentle, and
meek ; and it may be mean and con-
temptible to own estates and crowns
and sceptres. It is upon moral emo-
tion, aspiration and service that God
sets the seal of his blessing.
" The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear him ; and he will shew
them his covenant'' — Psalm xxv.
14.
AH religions have their arcana, or
secrets known only to those who are
within. The religion of the Bible does
not disdain to acknowledge its own
secrets, and to drive away from its
archives those who come with irreverent
curiosity to pry into the contents of
revelation. By "secret "we are here
to understand familiar intercourse. The
word here rendered ' ' secret " is traced
to a word which means couch ; the idea
is that of two friends seated upon the
same couch holding confidential inter-
course. The talk is as between com-
panions, and is conducted in eager
whispers. God is represented thus as
bringing to a loving heart his own
peculiar messages and communications,
which he will not publish to the general
world. God has so made his universe
that its various parts talk to one another.
Men hold friendly and confiding inter-
course. The sun is full of lessons, so
are the flowers, so are all the winds that
blow, so are the forests, and so are the
oceans. All these may be said to be
open secrets ; that is to say, men may
discover their meaning for themselves,
by comparison, by the study of analogy,
by the watching of the coming and
going phenomena of nature. But be-
yond this open revelation there is a
secret covenant. God calls his cliildren
into inner places, and there, in hushed
and holy silence, he communicates his
thought as his children are able to re-
ceive it. " He will shew them his
covenant : " he will read to them his
own decrees ; he will be his own inter-
preter, and make plain to the heart
things that are mysterious to the intellect.
We are to remember that in holding
these secrets we do not hold them
originally or as if by right ; we hold
them simply as stewards or trustees, and
we are not to make them common pro-
perty. The heart should always know
something that the tongue has never
told. Deep in our souls there should
be a peace created by communion with
God which no outward riches can dis-
turb. " The secret of,the Lord " may
not mean any curious knowledge of mere
details, or of future events, or the action
and interaction of history ; but it may
mean, and does mean, a complete and
immutable confidence that God reigns
over his whole creation, and is doing
everything upon a basis and under a
principle which must eventuate in final
and imperturbable peace. The universe
is not governed in any haphazard way.
This word " covenant " has been no
doubt al used, perverted, or misapplied;
but its use indicates that the divine plan
is sovereign, settled, unchangeable.
The universe is the Word of God, and
it cannot fail of its purpose. Jyevelation
448
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
is the heart of the Most High, and
every jot ard tittle of it will be fulfilled.
The truly religious life is not a matter
of mere intellectual inielligence or infor-
mation or power of argument : it is a
profound persuasion of the heart, a real,
simple, solid trust in the righteousness
and goodness of God. How such a
trust lifts us above the fret and the
anxiety of ever-changing details ! This
passage is in perfect harmony with
many assurances given by Jesus Christ
himself. He promised the Holy Spirit
to abide with the Church, to show the
Church things to come, and to take of
the things of Christ, and show them
unto the Church. The secret of the
Lord is thus an ever-enlarging mystery,
— an ever-enlarging benefaction.
** Into thine hand I comviit my spirit. ''"'
— Psalm xxxi. 5.
These are amongst the most memor-
able and graphic words in the highest
human experience. Stephen used a
similar expression. Our Lord himself
used them in his dying moments.
What a light this throws upon the action
of the last enemy ! Did the men who
used these words really die ? then their
last speech actually conti-adicted itself.
Here is nothino; said of extinction or
annihilation. The image which is re-
presented by these terms is that of a
man depositing his true life in the hands
of God as a trust. Think of the beauty
of this image, and be comforted. The
body dies; the house is torn down, but
the tenant escapes ; the throat will no
longer be used as an instrument, but
the singer and his song have gone on
. where their opportunity is larger. All
history testifies that there have been
men who have risen to this height
of faith. Polycarp, Bernard, Huss,
Henry V., Jerome of Prague, Luther,
Melanchthon, and innumerable others
have pas;ed from earth into the unseen
state with these very words upon their
lips. We must take these farewell
words as more than sentiment. They
express a confidence, they constitute an
argument ; they come back upon us as
a sublime assurance. Who knows
what death is to thote who have encoun-
tered it ? Who can say what visions are
revealed to their eyes? It should be
regarded as one of the chief treasures of
the Church that the men who have
passed away from earth, even by a
violent death, have been enabled at the
last to deposit in the hands of God their
spirit as a sacred trust. Instead, how-
ever, of leaving this exclamation to be
the final utterance of life, why should
we not make it the prayer of every day?
Why not every morning say, " Lord,
into thine hand I commit my spirit " ?
The meaning would then be that we
have no way of our own, no merely
selfish will, no desires that would escape
the chastisement and the refinement of
heaven. It would be but another way
of putting ourselves absolutely at the
disposal of God, saying, Lord, what
wilt thou have me do ? I commit my-
self wholly to thy care. Commit thy
way unto the Lord, and he will surely
bring it to pass. Blessed are they who
do not take care of themselves in any
sense that excludes the supremacy of
the divine oversight.
" Blessed is he that considereth the poor :
the Lord will deliver him in time
of trouble'' — PsALM xli. I.
The Psalmist is here talking experi-
mentally. He recalls the treachery of
some who professed to be his friends,
and he pours a eulogy upon those whose
honour and sympathy he had tested in'
a crucial hour. There is nothing to
show who wrote the psalm, yet in its
speech there is a tone that touches all
hearts. By " the poor " we are not to
understand in all cases the penniless.
" HANDFULS OF PURPOSE.
\\9
Poverty is a large word, and requires a
large definition. Sickness, weakness,
fear, sense of helplessness, sense of de-
solation— all these may be brought
under the definition of poverty. Some
men are poor mentally, needing con-
tinual suggestion, direction, and recruital
of mind. Want of money is the most
superficial kind of poverty. It is by no
means to be neglected either by the in-
dividual or by the state, because through
want of money men often perish through
lack of other things. When money is
taken thus typically, then pennilessness
becomes a manifold disorder and weak-
ness. The word rendered " consider-
eth" implies a kindliness of considera-
tion. It is not only a statistical or
economical view of social circumstances
it is also a direct and earnest exercise of
the heart. The word may also be ren-
dered "he that understands," then the
text would read, " Blessed is he that
understands the poor ; " by understand-
ing we are to bring in the idea of sym-
pathy or fellow-feeling. We cannot
understand the poor simply as an intel-
lectual study. A man may intellectually
concern himself with the condition of
the poor without ever knowing what it
is to suffer with them. We can only
understand the poor by living with
them, by making ourselves part of them,
by admitting them to our confidence.
No man understands hunger who has
not been hungry. There are dictionary
interpretations of words which help us
but a short way towards their true com-
prehension. Think of turning to the
dictionary to find the meaning of poverty,
hunger, sorrow, death ! All the words
may be neatly and clearly defined in
terms, but to understand any one of
them we must pass through the experi-
ence which it indicates. The blessings
of the Bible are always poured upon
good-doing. Never, in a single instance,
do we read of men being blessed simply
because they are kingly, rich, mighty, |
VOL. XII.
or even intellectually wise. In the
Beatitudes there is not a single blessing
on merely social greatness. All the
persons referred to in the Beatitudes
might be extinguished to-morrow, and
yet the world in all its higher social
phases might not be conscious of any
loss. How little the world knows of
its own riches ! How little we know
to whom we are indebted for the pre-
servation of our lives, and for the success
of our enterprises ! Some of us may
to-day be reaping harvests which our
fathers sowed in the fields of the poor.
We do not know the harvests because
they are so great. The actions done
by our forefathers were so small that
when we see them in their harvest form
we exclaim, These actions have come
up again, some thirty, some sixty, and
some an hundredfold.
" And if he come to see me, he speaketh
vanity : his heart gathereth iniqtdty
to itself ; luhen he goeth al»-oad, he
telleth it." — Psalm xli. 6.
The poet is thus recalling his personal
experience. His mind is set upon one
particular individual, and this is the
result of his study of that case. "To
see me " is a common expression
amongst ourselves ; it refers to seeing
a sick person, or seeing one who is in
difficult circumstances, or seeing a man
by particular invitation. The picture
drawn by the poet 's a very common
one. He ]v- nnfo'turately sent for a
man who does not understand his
case. The man is full of words ; he
can dilate upon the events of Jie time ;
he can ask many questions ; he can be
ostentatiously officious and meddlesome ;
but all is vanity, a veering wind, a
mere noise in the air. The person sent
for was destitute of the quality of sym-
pathy. He did not know the ministry
of silence. He did not understand
that by a mere look, tender, lingering,
29
io
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
and sympathetic, he could heal a human
heart. Being a newsmonger he brought
in the news of the day. which is a sure
proof that he would carry the news of
the day away with him. " When he
goeth abroad, he telleth it : " there is
nothing sacred to the mere talker ; there
is a disease of words, a gossip which
could pry and prattle about the most
mysterious and tragical experiences of
the heart. The man referred to by
the poet talked all the while about
himself, or only made such inquiries as
would give importance to himself when
he went away from the scene of con-
ference. The text teaches us how
important it is to entrust ourselves in
trying moments only to those who are
rich in Christian wisdom and sympathy.
Few men know how to visit the sick.
Those who are in Christ Jesus ought to
be able to take rich Christian sympathy
to sick chambers, and to make houses
beautiful with instances of divine reve-
lation and promise and comfort. It
should not be beneath the greatest to
visit the humblest. The supposition of
the poet is that the person here spoken
of is visiting " the poor" referred to in
the first verse. The temptation is to
over-ride the poor ; to make a false use
of strength in the presence of the poor ;
to bear down upon and discourage the
poor ; such persons should never be
sent to minister to souls that are in dis-
tress. The piety of Christ's Church is
not to be roughshod. The saints are
to study the gentlest courtesy and grace
of manner. They are to act " as
becometh saints."
" None of them can by any means
redeem his bi-other, nor give to God
a ransom for him." — PsALM xlix. 7.
The subject is limitations of influence
or power, even under the most favour-
able conditions. Here we have a brother
dying j he is surrounded by rich rela-
tions ; they would gladly redeem him
or give a ransom for him, and yet all
their generous thought and all their
hoarded wealth go for nothing. There
is a point at which even love stops,
and sacrifice can go no further, and the
soul must bow down itself in conscious
helplessness and momentary despair.
The word "brother" is not merely
a family word as used in this connection.
It will bear a large human interpre-
tation. Thus we have a universal law,
namely, that all men must succumb to
the tyranny of the last enemy. Here is
the ground upon which our common
humanity is realised. Wealth can create
great distinctions of a social kind.
Wealth can make a great difference
in the tombs in which men lie ; but,
decorate them as we may, they are
tombs still, memorials of our frailty and
of our helplessness. In view of the
certainties of life we ought to have
great governing principles. If life were
all uncertain together ; if death might
or might not occur ; if we may possibly
continue as households century after
century ; then we may adopt a different
basis of calculation : but seeing that
our breath is in our nostrils, and that
our truest and tenderest relations may
at any moment be broken up, seeing
that death must come within a few
years to the strongest of us all, certainly
it is not unreasonable to pause awhile
and to consider what we are and whither
we are going. The presence of death
amid all our living relations is the one
fact which the preacher should lay hold
of as supplying a fountain of exhortation.
We can die in one of two ways : either
as believers, or as unbelievers. Dying
as unbelievers, we pass into the ever-
lasting darkness without one solitary
ray to mitigate the gloom ; passing into
the future as believers in the Lord
Jesus Christ, we can give one another
a good hope of reunion amid imperisli-
able conditions of blissful growth. This
*'HArvDFULS OF PURPOSE."
451
latter consolation is no ephemeral or
insubstantial consideration ; it continu-
ally turns itself into stimulus and energy,
and day by day it lightens the burden
and softens the hardness of life. The
Christian hope of immortality is not a
future blessing ; it is an immediate
inspiration.
' The goodness of God endureth con-
tinually." — PsALM lii. I.
The Psalmist is here addressing a
tyrannical spirit — " Why boastest thou
thyself in mischief, O mighty man ? "
That "mighty man" may represent
either a personal tyrant, a national
enemy, or the spirit of all evil. The
literal translation might be " hero,"
used in a sarcastic sense. The mean-
ing is that he is a mighty one at mischief.
We read in Isaiah v. 22, of men who
are heroes at drinking. We have there-
fore to deal with a mighty and over-
whelming spirit. The P.-almist opposes
to this awful force the consolatory and
ever-sustaining thought that the good-
ness of God endureth continually. We
are not called upon to oppose might
with weakness, or to counteract the
solemn and horrible fact by some merely
pious sentiment or irrational ejaculation.
We meet might with superior might.
We encounter fact with still larger fact.
The Lord must ever be infinitely greater
than his enemies. If we look at them
alone they appear to us to be over-
whelming and irresistible ; but we are
not to look at them alone, but to the
heavens which are smiling upon our
souls, to the whole resources of Omni-
potence, to the boundless stores of divine
wisdom; so long as we fix our hearts
upon the goodness of God, and assure
ourselves of its continuousness, the
mighty man or wicked hero can have
no power against us. The goodness
of God is not intermittent. It does
not depend upon changeful moods.
Even the best of our friends may be
occasionally depressed or consciously
weak or uncertain in the applica-
tion of his love ; but in the case of
our Father in heaven we have to rely
upon the historically continuous, the
unchanging, the permanent. Let us
beware lest we break up the goodness
of God into mere fits and spasms, and
content ourselves with citing special
instances in which we have seen unique
and comforting providences. The Lord's
goodness is not to be marked off as in
a diary, now very high, now rather
low, now somewhat doubtful. Whether
we can see the direct and emphatic
line of goodness or not, we can believe
in its existence and in its influence.
God is always equally good. His
denials to our prayers are as gracious
as his fulfilments. We do not see all
this now, and it is not our business to
see it ; our one business is to have faith
in God, and to be quite sure that he is
good — " Good when he gives, supremely
good ; nor less when he denies." The
same doctrine is taught in the frequent
expression, " his mercy endureth for
ever." The fact is that the goodness
of God is God himself, and as he
endureth continually so his goodness
knows no time or change. God is not
loving ; the statement goes infinitely
beyond and gives us as the foundation
fact of our practical theology the assur-
ance that God is Love. So God is
goodness. Because God himself is good
ness there can be no change in his
mercy, there can be no limit to his
love. Rest in the Lord, and wait
patiently for him. Why should we
disquiet ourselves with vain thoughts,
and with events that mock our vision
and our hope, when we might live in
the inviolable sanctuary of real union
with God?
45»
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
"/ will freely sacrifice unto thee." —
PSAT.M liv. 6.
If we take the word "freely" as
equivalent to freewill we see what a
scope love has in the offering of
sacrifices unto God. The verse might
be rendered " I will oflfer a freewill
sacrifice." Some offerings we must
make, not of our own freewill but by
the compulsion of nature, by all the
necessities which represent the sterner
aspects of life. Some tributes are forced
from us. We are obliged to wait for
the seasons. We are compelled to bow
down our heads if not in acquiescent
yet in sullen consent to the decrees of
Providence. On other occasions we
are, so to say, left to invent the ex-
pressions of our own love ; God gives
us opportunities in which we may
show our real quality, and prove what
we would do if we could. The great
purpose of divine discipline is to
work out the freewill of men. At first
man would seem to have no freewill ;
he is bounded by laws, he is influenced
by heredity, he is shut in by circum-
stances, he is hardly consulted as to the
way in which he will spend his own
life. We begin our experiences under
the rod. Stern commandments say.
Thou shalt, Thou shalt not, during
every hour of our early existence. Then
the time comes when we have a larger
manhood. God gives us partial liberty.
Having enjoyed this liberty without
abusing it we are entrusted with still
greater responsibility. As time goes
on we seem to have reversed the whole
plan of life and to have come into a
large heritage of individual freedom.
If we have profited by the discipline
of life, the freedom which follows it
will not be misunderstood or perverted.
Freedom itself will be but a larger law.
Love will begin to consider what it
can do by way nf repayment of the
divine goodness. Thus we escape the
mere literal law, the hard and stem
request and command, and come into
the exercise of our larger and finer
faculties. The question then is, What
shall we do now that we have come
under the inspiration of love, having
escaped the dominion of iron law ? If
the home-life has been good, wise,
and beautiful, children on leaving it
will not forget the past, but will begin
to wonder how they can recognise the
very discipline under which once they
chafed. Let us feel that God has given
us great liberty in this matter of serving
him, and let it be our business not to
consider how little we can do in return,
but how much.
*^ Because they have no changes, there-
fore they fear not God." — PsALM
Iv. 19.
Sometimes this is applied to God
himself rather than to individuals. In
one translation the verse is set forth
thus : —
" God shall hear and aiQict them,
He abideth of old :
One in whom are no changes,
And yet they fear not God."
This may be taken as the legitimate
meaning of the passage, yet by a very
natural accommodation the meaning
may be made to set forth the fact that
where life flows on in an equal stream
we are apt, by the very monotony of
the action to forget causes, influences,
and rulerships of a spiritual and divine
kind. In an obvious sense familiarity
breeds, if not contempt, yet simple
neglect or indifference. All things are
as they have been from the beginning.
The seedtime and the harvest have
been favourable; all investments and
speculations have been successful with-
out a single break or exception ; the
family health has been sound from
generation to generation ; the family
homestead has never been removed;
*'HANDFULS OP PURPOSED
453
what are people to think under
such circumstances ? There creeps over
the mind a kind of feeling that these
things are matters of course, and that
change would be a simple impossibility.
Thus prosperity itself may lead to
Atheism. Thus the very continuous-
ness of real enjoyment may lead to
irreligiousness of thought ; not to
blasphemy or profanity but to simple
•forgetfulness of the immediate presence
and beneficent energy of God. On the
other hand, God uses change, tumult,
conflict, attrition, and other agencies as
means of discipline and of education.
It is good for us to be thrown about
in the world, to have our plans upset,
to have our influence limited, and to be
often stung by disappointment. Apart
from these ministries we might come
to suppose we had prescriptive rights
and vested interests, and that God
was on our side because of some pecu-
liar favouritism. Men should not con-
sider that their upsettings and conflicts
are against them ; they are really for
them ; they mean to refine, chasten,
and strengthen the mind. When we
have no great experiences we do not
ask any great questions ; when life is
suddenly turned into a tragedy men
begin to think, and possibly they begin
to pray. Consider the ministry of
tumult, riot; sorrow, bitterness, and
daily disappointment 1 Are all these
things for nought ? Is all this but a
display of accident and incalculable
sequence? Are we governed by freak
and mood and whim ? Is there not a
great all-uniting and all-directing law
below and above and around the whole
action of life ? These are religious
questions, and can only be answered
by religious minds. Nor must we omit
the application of the more legitimate
construction of the passage. God him-
self is unchanging — unchanging in his
love of righteousness, in his hatred
of wickedness, in his protection of all
honour and virtue, and in his purpose
to bring the world to high character
through the medium of what we know
as the blessed and everlasting Gospel.
Because God is unchangeable, let us
trust him. Because Gorl is unchange-
able, let us not presume upon the
weakness or incertitude of his laws.
Because God is unchangeable, let us
confidently and gratefully believe that
the wilderness shall blossom as the rose,
even though at this moment it be but
boundless sand, sterile and unfruitful
rock.
*' For thy mercy is great unto the
heavens, and thy truth unto the
clouds.'' — Psalm Ivii, lo.
The Psalmist sings of mercy and
truth. Rightly analysed, there are no
other elements in the great songs of
the Church. We here come upon a
noble strain. It is right that in the
growth and expansion of our religious
life we should frequently accustom
ourselves to the contemplation of that
which is grand and majestic. It is of
course right that we should always
think of God as merciful, tender, gentle,
condescending, and the like ; but along
with this series of thoughts we should
encourage lofty and humbling con-
templations of the majesty and awful-
ness of the divine name and character.
Whilst we exalt the Cross (God forbid
that we should ever cease to do so I)
we should also fix our attention upon
the throne, the crown, the sceptre,
the symbols of ineffable and incompre-
hensible majesty. The Psalmist appears
to follow this inspiration in the text ;
when he speaks of God's mercy, it fills
all heaven with its brightness ; and
when he turns to God's truth, he finds
it reaching up unto the clouds and
filling the firmament with its glory.
A decay of reverence is also a decay of
tenderness. It is possible to look upon
454
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
majesty until tears overflow the eyes.
One might suppose that the contem-
plation of majesty would simply lead
to intellectual delight and growing
intellectual strength. It is true that
such a contemplation may be so used,
but when it is properly associated we
shall find that a right contemplation of
God's majesty bows us down in tender-
ness, affecting not only the mind but
the heart, and leading us to cry out,
" Now mine eye seeth thee, I abhor
myself in dust and ashes." We should
often allow the soul to express itself in
the most rapturous terms. Religion is
nothing if it be expressible wholly in
words. Occasionally we leave the
region of words and pass into the higher
region of feeling, ecstasy, unutterable
delight and thanksgiving. Here it is
that religion assists the expression of
the highest life. We leave the words
altogether and feel that in sounds of
melody alone can we begin to express
the higher and tenderer emotions of
the soul. Beautifid is it to hear the
Psalmist praising the kindness of God,
and equally leautiful and grand is it
to hear him exclaim, " Be thou exalted,
O God, above the heavens : let thy
glory be above all the earth."
" Trust in hitn at all times." —
Psalm Ixii. 8.
The emphasis must be upon the con-
tinuousness of the trust. Occasional
trust is continual infidelity. Spasmodic
religion is but a variety of unbelief. In
the regularity, the continuousness, it
may be even the monotony, of our re-
ligious sacrifices we find their genuine
worth. It is difficult for some minds
to distinguish between that which is
regular and that which is monotonous.
We may so live as to make sunshine
itself a monotony ; or we may so use it
as to find every day a poem, every
season a vision and an apocalypse. Jo
said, " Though he slay me, yet will I
trust in him." We are called upon to
trust God where we cannot praise him.
It is in the Garden of Gethsemane that
we best can show the reality and force
of our trust in God. Fair-weather re-
ligion is a mockery, a variety of selfish-
ness, a mere sentiment that comes and
goes with the sunshine. It is when our
heart is overwhelmed within us that we
should desire to be led to the Rock that
is high and infinite. It is when our
souls are filled with bitterness that we
should declare we will not leave the
strong tower of God. Here it is that
the Christian has a constant opportunity
for showing the completeness, the ten-
derness, and the practical value of faith.
Even infidels may laugh at mid-day,
and fools be glad in the time of abound-
ing harvest ; only he who lovingly
trusts in God can be calm in the dark-
ness, and sing songs of trust when the
fig tree does not flourish. Tiust of this
kind amounts to an argument. It com-
pels the attention of those who study
the temper and action of our lives.
Naturally they ask how is it that we
are so sustained and comforted, and
that when other men are complaining
and repining we can repeat our prayer
and sing the same song of trust, though
sometimes, indeed, in a lower tone.
We are watched when we stand by
the graveside, and if there Christian
faith can overcome human sorrow a
tribute of praise is due to our prin-
ciples. And many men may be pre-
pared to render that tribute, and so
bring themselves nearer to the kingdom
of God. A beautiful refrain is this to
our life-song, ' ' Trust in him at all
times" — in youth, in age, in sorrow,
in joy, in poverty, in wealth ; at all
times, in good harvests and in bad
harvests, in the wilderness and in the
garden, on the firm earth and on the
tumultuous sea ; at all times, until time
itself has mingled with eternity.
''HANDFULS OF PURPOSED
455
** If I regard iniquity in my hearty the
Lord will not hear me." — Psalm
Ixvi, 1 8.
The notion is that a man is profess-
edly praying and is at the same time
really forming some unkind or wicked
scheme in his heart. The morality of
the Bible is thus brought into strong
view. It will have everything right
at the core, and not on the surface
only. It will not have prayer regarded
in its detached relation, but will search
into all the circumstances and condi-
tions of the heart which is professedly
praying. We must bring a whole heart
to the altar of prayer if our supplica-
tions are to be answered. Suppose
that a man is praying for the forgive-
ness of his sins, and is at the same
time con'^idering in his heart how he
may punish his adversaries, that man's
prayer is an empty wmd which will
never reach the tieavens to which it is
addressed. If we are praying for great
mercies upon our household, and with-
holding that which is due from the
labnurer, our prayer will be wasted
breath. It we are orthodox in doctune
and heterodox in conduct, our hetero-
doxy will keep our prayers out of
heaven. A wonderful revelation this
of the penetrating spirit of the Bible.
It searches the hearts and tries the
reins of the children of men ; it is
sharper than a two-edged sword, pierc-
ing to the dividing asunder of the joints
and marrow ; the word of the Lord is
a candle by which the heart is searched.
All this, though terrible in one aspect
and almost discouraging, is yet when
viewed in its fullest relations, most
assuring and comforting. It protects
us against the prayers of wicked and
unworthy men. We know that our
enemies cannot pray aga nst us, because
being our enemies they cannot pray at
all. The Lord will not hear any man
whose heart is hard towards his brother
It is in vain that I seek mercy for my-
self if I will not extend it to those who
have wronged me. Except we forgive
we cannot be forgiven. If we forgive
not men from our hearts, neither will
our Father in heaven forgive us. Again
and again we come upon the holy
thought that we are in reality just
what we are in our heart or in our
thought. A comforting reflection lies
here, namely, that if our heart be
free from guile, no matter how poor
our words may be, they shall find
acceptance in heaven. Not the prayer
that is eloquent in language, but the
prayer that is eloquent in sincerity, will
be heard and answered from on high.
Extend forgiveness to those who have
trespassed against you, if you would
be sure that your prayers will ascend
to heaven and bring back answers of
holy peace.
" Vooi), and pay unto the Lord your
God:'' — Psalm Ixxvi. ii.
" When thou vowest a vow unt
God, defer not to pay it ; for he hath
no pleasure in fools : pay that which
thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou
shouldest not vow than that thou
shouldest vow, and not pay" (Eccl. v.
4, 5). The undisciplined mind may
hereupon say, "Then I will not vow,
and so I shall escape all responsibility."
It is a fool's logic. See how contra-
dictory it is. A man vows that he will
not vow ! He does the very thing
*(hich he declares he will never do.
But the logic is no worse than the
morality. Think of a man S" arranging
his life as to escape all responsibility !
That is to destroy life, — to take out of
it all symmetry, all strength, all mean-
ing. Life itself is a responsibi ity. The
man who proceeded upon the do-nothing
principle was, in Christ's parable, con-
demned as a wicked and slothful ser-
vant, and cast into outer darkness. Let
456
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
us make up our minds that there is no
escape from responsibility, and that it
must be met in a way that is wise, or
in a way that is foolish. Let us inquire
somewhat into the nature and scope of
vows ; then look at the purely religious
aspect of vowing ; and finally consider
it in its practical bearing as upon God,
ourselves, and society. — I. A vow is a
resolution, and something more. You
may resolve to be in France next week,
but the resolution may amount merely
to an expression of a conclusion which
may be reversed by unforeseen occur-
rences. In this case the resolution is
simply an affair of intention. You say
you have made up your mind to a
certain course, but something may hap-
pen to change your mind. A vow
affects not only the judgment, but the
heart. A vow should not be based upon
expediency, but upon rectitude, — upon
foundations which cannot change. It
may be right to resolve to go home by
a certain train, but it may be absurd to
vow it. The question does not touch
the region of conscience, obligation, or
honour. It is a mere matter of arrange-
ment, and may be changed at the dic-
tation of circumstances. A resolution
may be an effort of mere judgment, — a
vow must be the expression of the heart.
You resolve that your child shall wear
a certain style of clothing, but were you
to vow it you would be guilty of exag-
geration,— you would thrust a iiiere trifle
into association with the deepest solem-
nities of life ; you would make too much
of it, — you would not exalt your taste,
you would degrade your religion. — II.
Vows are to be nnde to God, or in the
name of God : they are deeply religious
acts. " And Jacob vowed a vow, saying,
If God will be with me, and wiU keep
me in this way that I go, and will give
me bread to eat, and raiment to put on,
so that I come again to my father's house
in peace ; then shall the Lord be my
God." Life is made sublime by the fact
that it can in all its highest acts be in
league and bond with God. Life is
thus redeemed from lowness, littleness,
poverty, commonplace, and vulgarity.
Behaviour becomes an expression of
deep conviction. Words are more than
breath, they are the pulses of the soul.
Vows are made in secret between the
heart and God. They are made at the
Cross. When spoken openly, they are
spoken with fear. A vow is best made
when the only auditor is God. What
subjects, then, are fit for the solemnity
of vows ? (l) The religions consecration
of periods of time. ( 2 ) The godly train-
ing of children. (3) The religious devo-
tion of sums of money. (4) A fuller
dedication of energy to divine service.
Then there is an inner region known
only to the individual himself, — be-
setting sins, mortifications of passions,
duties to those who have special claims
upon us, care for others, and many
points secret to each heart. — III. We
are not only to vow, we are also to pay
our vows. " If a man vow a vow unto
the Lord, or swear an oath to bind his
soul with a bond ; he shall not break his
word, he shall do according to all that
proceedeth out of his mouth." It is
profane to treat a vow lightly. " When
thou shalt vow a vow uno the Lord
thy God, thou shalt not slack to pay it :
for the Lord thy God will surely require
it of thee ; and it would be sin in thee."
So a man's religion may actually Be
turned into aggrava'ed impiety ! To
vow, and not to pay, destroys the finest
qualities and powers of manhood. Non-
payment means diminution of soul-
power, — exhaustion of spiritual force.
In not paying a vow, man loses faith
in himself : he is a liar to his own soul !
The spiritual and practical lesson is
this : The great questions of life lie first
between man and God, — not between
man and man, but between man and
God. A man must settle with God
what ought to be done and how it ought
"HANDFULS OF PURPOSE."
457
to be done, then he will be lifted above
all social fear. Does he give money ?
He must give it first to God. Does he
give time? Let him first give it to
Jesus Christ, (i) Let us remember
broken vows, — vows made in sickness,
in high spiritual excitement, in ex-
tremity of fear, etc. (2) Let us make
new vows. " It is high time to awake
out of sleep," " Whatsoever thy hand
findeth to do," etc. he only vow
which can be fulfilled is the vow which
is made m the name and strength of
God.
" The Lord doth build tip Jerusalem :
he gather eth together the outcaits
of Israel. He healeth the broken
in heart, and bindeth up their
wounds. He telleth the number of
the stars ; he calleth them all by
their names. Great is our Lord , and
of great power : his understanding
is infinite." — PsALM cxlvii. 2-5.
Every revelation of the nature or
attributes of God must be of supreme
value to men who are not utterly de-
based in thought and feeling. God
must ever be the one object about
which our highest faculties are excited
to their most resolute and vehement
endeavours to know the truth. Granted
that it is possible for the creature to
know the Creator, then every other
subject must have its value determined
by its relation to that one sublime
possibility. There are subjects which
clear for themselves large spaces, so to
speak, and define the proportions and
limitations of a great many other sub-
jects. See how this is constantly
illustrated in ordinary life. A man
proposes to build a house in a most
lovely situation : the scene is variegated
by hill and dale ; it is quiet, simple,
and charming altogether. He will build.
His heart is set upon the project.
Already in imagination he sees the
edifice which is to be consecrated as
his home. Timber is at hand, stones
are within reach, the painter and
decorator await but a call. But, but,
but what ? Why, there is no water !
Not a well can be found. To sink
for water would cost him more money
than he can afford ; so, though every-
thing else be forthcoming, the scheme
must be abandoned for want of one
thing ! — What if a man should attempt
to build a house upon principles con-
trary to geometry? Suppose he should
discard the square, the plumb-line, and
the rule? Every inch of his progress
would be one inch nearer ruin. In
building the meanest hovel you must
work according to the laws which
unite creation ; if you quarrel with
astronomy or geometry, you build a
structure which no mortal ingenuity or
strength can prop ; the worlds are
against you ; the stars fight for God. —
In building a life he only is wise who
consults the Creator; who reverently
inquires into his nature and sovereignty,
and prays the Infinite to protect and
teacli the finite. History is the revealer
of God. Experience, wide and deep
knowledge of truth in actual life,
teaches man the spirit and method of
God's purpose and government. We
cannot find out God abstractly ; we
cannot know him as he is, except
through the medium of what he does ;
and herein is the value of spiritual
testimony, the worth and power of the
experience which has tested the mercy
and wisdom of God. — Take the text
as an example. This testimony is more
than an abstract argument, it is the
solemn oath of men who have lived
this most blessed experience, or have
so watched the ways of God as to speak
as emphatically of the stars as of hearts
that have been healed. It is the
healed heart that most clearly sees the
hand of God amongst the stars. The
45^
THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
heart teaches the intellect ; the heart
says, "See! the God who cares for
thee cares also for the frail lily, the
fluttering bird, the shining star." So
the life of man becomes the practical
interpreter of God, and experience sees
his presence everywhere.— Let us regard
the text in the light of our own con-
sciousness and experience, that we may
see how unchangeable is God in the
might of his arm and the tenderness of
his heart. — The text reveals the con-
structive side of the divine govern-
ment.— I. As shown in the building up
of the Church. — " The Lord doth build
up Jerusalem," etc. That he should do
so, shows (i) that the church is self-
demolished ; (2) that it is self-helpless ;
and (3) that God is' the gatherer, the
redeemer, and the builder of the
church. — It is not God's purpose to
destroy. It is his very nature to pre-
serve, extend, complete, and glorify.
He does destroy, but never willingly.
His arm does not become terrible until
his heart has been grieved, until his
patience has been exhausted, and until
the vital interests o the universe have
been put in peril. — II. As seen in the
gentle care of human hearts. — " He
healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth
up their wounds." Still, you see how
constructive and preservative is God.
His work is edification, not destruction.
Who cares for broken-hearted men?
Who has patience with the weak and
faint? The greater the nature, the
greater the compassion. "It is better
to fall into the hands of God than into
the hands of men." Learn from this
gentle care of human hearts. — First :
The personality of God's knowledge.
He knows every bruised reed. Hearts
sufi"er in secret ; there is nothing hidden
from God I — Second : The infinite
adaptations of divine grace. Every
heart, whatever its grief, may be healed !
There is " a sovereign balm for every
wound." Are we wounded on account
of sin ? are we writhing under the
agonies of penitence ? are we tortured
by circumstances over which we have no
control — the waywardness of children,
physical prostration, the opposition of
bad men, and the like ? For every
wound there is healing in the grace
of God 1 Third : The perfectness of
divine healing. Other healers say,
"Peace, peace, when there is no peace."
Others " heal the hurt of the daughter
of my people slightly." God com-
plained to Ezekiel, " One built up a
wall, and, lo, others daubed it with
untempered mortar." We are not
healed until God heals us. God offers
to heal us ; our disease and our sorrow
are challenges to prove his grace. What
of the responsibility of refusal ? — III.
As seen in the order, the regularity,
and the stability of creition. — "He
telleth the number of the stars ; he
calleth them all by their names."
Creation is a volume open to all eyes.
Read it, and see the might of gentle-
ness, the wisdom and patience of God.
" Lift up your eyes on high, and behold
who hath created these things, that
bringeth out their host by number :
He calleth them all by names by the
greatness of his might, for that he is
strong in power; not one faileth."
Jesus Christ taught us to reason from
the natural to the spiritual : " Consider
the lilies," etc. ; " Behold the fowls of
the air," etc. — (i) God takes care of
the great universe, may I not trust him
with my life? — (2) Where God's will
is unquestioned, the result is light,
beauty, music : why should I oppose
myself to its gracious dominion ? — In
the grandeur, stability, perfectness of
the universe, we see what God would
do in our lives, did we call him to the
throne of our love. — The subject has
applied itself as we have proceeded
from point to point ; still we may
linger one moment more on flowers
laden with such honey. Let the church
** HANDFULS OF PURPOSEr
459
be of good courag'e : " When the Lord
shall build up Zion, he shall appear
in his glory." "The gates of hell shall
not prevail." — Are we truly broken in
heart ? Hear, then, the Saviour : " He
hath sent me to bind up the broken-
hearted,"— sent his Son to heal us ! —
Are we contrite, humble, penitent ?
" Thus saith the high and lofty One
that inhabi'.eth eternity, whose name is
Holy : I dwell in the high and holy
place, with him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit, to revive the spirit
of the humble, and to revive the heart
of the contrite ones." Our brokenness
attracts Him. The cry of our sorrows
brings him down from heaven, "Ah
Lord God ! behold, thou hast made
the heaven and the earth by thy great
power and stretched-out arm, and there
is nothing too hard for thee : thou
showest loving-kindness unto thousands,
and recompensest the iniquity of the
fathers into the bosom of their children
after them : The great, the mighty
God, the Lord of hosts, is his name ;
great in counsel, and mighty in
work I"
NOTES ON THE PSALTER.
"My voice is unto God, and I will cry" (Ps. Ixxvii. l), might well stand
as a motto to the whole of the Psalter ; for, whether immersed in the
depths, or whether blessed with greatness and comfort on every side, it is
to God that the Psalmist's voice seems ever to soar spontaneously aloft.
Alike in the welcome of present deliverance or in the contemplation of
past mercies, he addresses himself straight to God as the object of his praise.
Alike in the persecutions of his enemies and the desertions of his friends, in
wretchedness of body and in the agonies of inward repentance, in the hour
of impending danger and in the hour of apparent despair, it is direct to God
that he utters forth his supplications. Despair, we say ; for such, as far as
the description goes, is the Psalmist's state in Ps. Ixxxviii. But meanwhile
he is praying ; the apparent impossibility of deliverance cannot restrain his
God-ward voice ; and so the very force of communion with God carries him,
almost unawares to himself, through the trial.
Connected with this is the faith by which he everywhere lives in God
rather than in himself God's mercies, God's greatness, form the sphere in
which his thoughts are ever moving : even when through excess of affliction
reason is rendered powerless, the naked contemplation of God's wonders of
old forms his effectual support (Ps. Ixxvii.).
It is of the essence of such faith that the Psalmist's view of the perfections
of God should be true and vivid. The Psalter describes God as he is : it
glows with testimonies to his power and providence, his love and faithful-
ness, his holiness and righteousness. Correspondingly it testifies against
every form of idol which men would substitute in the living God's place :
whether it be the outward image, the work of men's hands (Ps. cxv.),
or whether it be the inward vanity of earthly comfort or prosperity, to be
purchased at the cost of the honour which cometh from God alone (Ps. iv.).
The solemn "See that there is no idol-way (3Vy "in) '^"^ me'' of Ps.
exxxix., the striving of the heart after the very truth and nought beside, is
the exact anticipation of the "Little children, keep yourselves from idols,"
of the loved Apostle in the N. T.
The Psalms not only set forth the perfections of God : they proclaim also
the duty of worshipping him dj- ine acknowledgment and adoration of his
perfections. They encourage all outward rites and means of worship : new
songs, use of musical instruments of all kinds, appearance in God's courts,
lifting up of hands, prostration at his footstool, holy apparel (A.V. " beauty
460 THE PEOPLE'S BIBLE.
of holiness"). Among these they recognise the ordinance of sacrifice (Ps.
iv., v., xxvii., li.) as an expression of the worshipper's consecration of
himself to God"s service. But not the less do they repudiate the outward
rite when separated from that which it was designed to express (Ps. xl.,
Ixix.) : a broken and contrite heart is, from erring man, the genuine
sacrifice which God requires (Ps. 11.).
Similar depth is observable in the vie%v taken by the Psalmists of human
sin. It is to be trateed not only in its outward manifestations, but also in
the inward workings of the heart (Ps. xxxvi.), and is to be primarily
ascribed to man's innate corruption (Ps. li., Iviii.). It shows itself alike in
deeds, in words (Ps. xvii., cxli.), and in thoughts (Ps. cxxxix.) ; nor is even
the believer able to discern all its various ramifications (Ps. xix.). Con-
nected with this view of sin is, on the one hand, the picture of the utter
corruption of the ungodlj' world (Ps. xiv.) ; on the other, the encouragement
to genuine repentance, the assurance of divine forgiveness (Ps. xxxii.), and
the trust in God as the source of complete redemption (Ps. cxxx. ).
In regard of the law, the Psalmist, while warmly acknowledging its
excellence, feels yet that it cannot so effectually guide his own unassisted
exertions as to preserve him from error (Ps. xix.). He needs an additional
grace from above, the grace of God's Holy Spirit (Ps. li.). But God's Spirit
is also a free spirit (z'6.) ; led by this he will discern the law, with all its
precepts, to be no arbitrary rule of bondage, but rather a charter and
instrument of liberty (Ps. cxix.).
The Psalms bear repeated testimony to the duty of instructing others in
the ways of holiness (Ps. xxxii., xxxiv., li."). They also indirectly enforce
the duty of love, even to our enemies (Ps. vii. 4, xxxv. 13, cix. 4). On the
other hand, they imprecate, in the strongest terms, the judgments of God on
transgressors. Such imprecations are levelled at transgressors as a body,
and are uniformly uttered on the hypothesis of their wilful persistence in
evil, in which case the overthrow of the sinner becomes a necessary part of
the uprooting of sin. They are in nowise inconsistent with any efforts to
lead sinners individually to repentance.
This brings us to notice, lastly, the faith of the Psalmists in a righteous
recompense to all men according to their deeds (Ps. xxxvii., etc.). They
generally expected that men would receive such recompense in great mea-
sure during their own lifetime. Yet they felt withal that it was not then
complete : it perpetuated itself to their children (Ps. xxxvii. 25, cix. 12, etc.) ;
and thus we find set forth in the Psalms, with sufficient distinctness, though
in an immatured and consequently imperfect form, the doctrine of a retri-
bution after death. — Smith's Dictionary of the Bible.
The following is a list of the chief passages in the Psalms which are in
anywise quoted or embodied in the N. T. : — Ps. ii. I, 2, 7> 8, 9, iv. 4, v. 9, vi.
3, 8, viii. 2, 4-6, X. 7, xiv. 1-3, xvi. 8-1 1, xviii. 4, 49, xix. 4, xxii. I, 8, 18, 22,
xxiii. 6, xxiv. I, xxxi. 5) xxxii. I, 2, xxxiv. 8, 12-16, 20, xxxv. 9, xxxvi. i,
xxxvii. II, xl. 6-8, xli. 9, xliv. 22, xiv. 6, 7» xlviii. 2, li. 4, Iv. 22, Ixviii. 18,
Ixix. 4, 9, 22, 23, 25, Ixxv. 8, Ixxviii. 2, 24, Ixxxii. 6, Ixxxvi. 9, Ixxxix. 20,
xc. 4, xci. Ti, 12, xcii. 7) xciv. 11, xcv. ']-\\, cii. 25-27, civ. 4, cix. 8, ex. 1, 4,
cxii. 9, cxvi. 10, cxvii. I, cxviii. 6, 22, 23, 25, 26, cxxv. 5, cxl. 3. — Ibid.
END OF VOL. XU,
INDEX.
Addison, quoted, 163.
Affljrtion, glorying in, 430.
Anthem-book of the church, the, 438.
Appearances, deceitfulness of, 350.
Asaph, Psalms of, 221, 266, 270.
Astronomers, the discoveries of, 165.
Backsliding, stages of, 339.
Bad man, a picture of the, 94.
Barry, Bishop, on the Psalms of Asaph,
270.
Beatitudes, divine authorship of the,
126.
Bible, the, condensed into the Psalms,
4; the position of the, 265; great
doctrines of, ib. ; an hospitable book,
289 ; of the Psalmists, 408 ; a prac-
tical guide, 410 ; a lamp, 41 1 ; a book
to be revered, ib. ; its best annota-
tors, 415. See Scriptures.
Biblical doctrine, value of being rooted
in, 14.
Blessed man, the, 12.
Boasting of the wicked, the, 89.
"Castaway," a humbling word, 77;
possibility of becoming a, 338.
Centuries, eloquence of the dead, 164.
Cliaff, versus wheat, 17 ; to be burned
with unquenchable fire, 23.
Character, final tests of, 19 ; how to be
tested, 128.
Chariots, vanity of trusting in, 175.
Chinese, the deities of the, 135.
Christ in the Psalms, 2 ; the kingdom
of, 24. See Jesus Christ.
Christian psalmody, who should not
take part in, 434.
Christians should not be gloomy, 244.
Church, the, a miracle, 214; a glorious,
215.
Civilisation, Jesus Christ in, 316.
Conscience, action of, 429.
Contrasts, teaching by, 399.
Conversion, conditions of, 172.
Coronations, a psalm used at, 169.
Covetous man, description of a, 91.
Creation, voices of, 324,
Creed, the all-including, 292.
Cross, the sinner's need of the, 202;
the power of the, 299.
David, his conduct in sickness, 58; his
self-renunciation, 60 ; his appeal to
God, 65 ; pleads his innocence, 67 ;
his young eloquence, 68 ; his strong
language, 69 ; his conception of God,
80; his grand creed, 96 ; in dire dis-
tress, ib; the solidityof his character,
97; contrasted with Paul, 116; a
prayer of, 14I ; his most magnificent
ode, 148 ; prophetically represented
the Messiah, 150; bitter and awful
experience of, 153; his most pro-
found composition, 159; his over-
whelmed heart, 233 ; his aspiration,
234-
Day and night leading, 272.
Daylight, a blessing of God, 274.
Days ot our years, the, 310; number
of, ib.
462
INDEX.
Death, the fear of, 115; shrinking from,
116; the sorrows of, 152.
Double-hearted ness, comments upon,
107.
EvERLASTiNCNESs, an elerr.ent of the
Bible, 84.
Evil deeds, the memory of, 305.
Evil doers, the number of, 190.
Existence of God, proof of the, Z/iS.
Fair-weather psalm, a, 43.
Faith, definition of, 239, 279; the
scul's I'fe, 288.
Faithful witness, a, 189.
False religions, 349.
Falsehoods, varieties of, 108.
Fifty-first Psalm, the, 3.
Fcod, angels', 281 ; of the sensualist,
282; intellectual, 284.
Forgetfulness, the land of, 302.
Forgiveness, meaning of, 306.
Forsakenness, loneliness of, 42,
Gleaners, " Handfuls of Purpose " for
all, 439.
Glorified providence, 1 49.
God, the laughter and judgment of, 26;
threatenings of, 29; a shield, 38;
sovereignty of, 41 ; his majesty, 84 ;
unchangeable, 85 ; the guests at his
table, 86 ; his accessibility, 87 ;
against wickedness, ib.; his with-
drawment, 89 ; promises of, 97 ; a
hospitable host, 179; the portion of
his people, ib. ; how glorified, 228 ; a
refuge and a shelter, 236, 239 ; proof
of the existence of, 276 ; his hatred
of sin, 291 ; man's dependence upon,
330 ; lovingkindness of, 342 ; cha-
racter of, revealed in the Psalms,
371, 381; his kingliness, 372; his
goodness and greatness, 383; his
fatherhood, ib. ; a consuming fire,
401; judgment of, 404; working in
human history, 437.
God's glory m the heavens, 71, 159.
likeness, awaking in, I46.
pood man, prosperity of the, 15, 17.
Gospel, the, God's answer to sin, 296.
Grand doxology, the, 432.
Grand picture of nature, a, 159.
Guilty silence, 363.
Habits, operation of evil, 77.
"Handfuls of Purpose" for all Gleaners,
439-
Hiij'piuess, the quest for, 43.
Heart, icriptural signification of the
word, 120; God anxious about the,
T44; religiousness of the human.
232.
Heathen, the raging of, 24 ; the
inheritance of Christ, 29.
Heavens, God's glory in the, 71, 160.
Hell, the sorrows of, 152.
Helplessness, an image of, 249.
Holy Ghost, ministry of the, 290.
Human experience, 63.
life, the seasons of, 46.
pilgrimage, 356.
Hypocrite, the end of the, iS.
" I KNOW," 424,
" I will," 416.
Ideal Christianity, the, 105.
Immortality, man's, 77 ; the idea in
the Old Testament, 137 ; part of the
divine nature, ib.
Jesus Christ, the birth of, 29 ; his
dominion, 32 ; the great love of,
130; in the salms, 138; the Rock
of ages, 234 ; his glorious name, 262 ;
the bread of life, 278, 287. See
Christ.
Jews, ritual of the, 225.
King, the Hebrew idea of a, 259.
Kings, their need of prayer, 27.
King's daughter, the, 213 ; "all
glorious," 215.
Kingship of Jesus, the, 257.
Kissing, a token of homage, 33.
Knowledge cannot be bequeathed, 201.
Language, Hebrew, advantages of,
417.
INDEX.
463
Land of forg'jtfulness, the, 302.
Law of the Lord, the, 9.
Leathes, Professor Stanley, on the
Psalter, 340.
Lethe, the waters of, 302.
Life, shortness of, 312; yet immortal,
iU.; value of, 386.
Liturgy, an ancient relic of the, 168.
Lord, the voice of the, 1S2.
Lovingkindness, the, of God, 342.
Lubbock, Sir John, his useful books,
343-
Man, almost God, 75 ; his greatness,
76.
"Marmion," quoted, 313.
Materialism, theory of, 327.
Messianic Psalms, 150.
Michtam of David, a, 131; a musical
term, ib.
Miracles, great and gr.':nd, 334.
Morning meditation, a, 318.
Most High, as to the right conception
of the, 84, 88 ; full address of the,
435-
Musical instruments, use of, 433.
Names, how to be bestowed, 72.
Nature, the study of, 72 ; the religious
use of, 74 J one of the psalms of,
181; the drugs of, 202; contempla-
tion of, 324, 327 ; man the sport of,
347.
Neglect, painfulness of, 1 14.
Newman, Cardinal, controversies of,
354.
Night, the need of, 276; solemnity of,
319-
Notes on the Psalter (from Smith's
" Dictionary of the Bible "), 459.
Old Testament, the tender side of
the, 86.
Oration, a noble religious, 55-
Pantheism, speculations of, 326.
Panting for the water brooks, 197 ;
meaning of. IQS 20). j
"Paradise Lost, ' quoted, 329. |
Parents, their respor^sibility, 36 1.
Patience, need of the lesson ol, 241.
Paul contrasted with David, 116.
Peace, what is true, 182; false, 184;
promised to the Church, 185.
Personal prayer and praise, 51.
testimony, need of, 298, 366.
Pharaoh's heart, hardening of, 336.
Phonograph, wonders of the, 255.
Physician, limite powers of the, 17 1.
Pits, Eastern uses of, 254.
Poor and needy, who are the, 109.
Prayer, nature of true, 51 ; the sequel
of praise, 54; vicious mistakes con-
cerning, 56 ; efficacy of morning, ib. ;
when selfish, 105 ; not an acquired
habit, 199, et seq ; what is true, 427.
Prayer of David, a, 141.
Praye-s, 7, 62, 79, 104, 1 12, 119, 131,
139, 148, 158, 167, i8i, 187, 197,212,
220, 238, 247, 257, 263, 271, 2S0,
300, 309, 322, 333, 341, 370, 380,
389, 397, 407, 424, 432.
Pre chers, the positive work of, 296;
unreasonable demands upon, ib.
Protector, the divine, 34.
Proverbs in the Psalter, 5, 10.
Providence, the gospel of, 205 ; divine,
in the Psalms, 390 ; mysteries of,
393-
Providential interpositions, remark-
able, 335.
Provocation and in^precation, 248.
Paalmless heart, sadness of the, l8o.
Psalms, inspiration of, I ; tender words
of the, 387 ; passages quoted in the
New Testament, 460.
of Asaph, 221, 266, 270.
Puritan preachers quoted, 184.
Religion nothing without morality,
221.
Religious impressions, transitoriness
of, 337-
Revelation, a continual surprise, 13;
scope of, in the Psalms, 408.
Reverence, how acceptably expressed
54.
Revival of religion, 2901
464
INDEX.
RigK-poi;sn'=.?s, the offerings of, 46, 49;
the tnte, defined, 81.
Sabbath musings, a psalm of, 318.
Saints, Old Testament, their rapture,
48 ; prayers of, 52 ; meaning of, 223.
Sanctuary, blessing in the, 421.
Scorner, the, right estimate of, II.
Scriptures, the, "wondrous things" in,
409; rejoicing in, 413; comfort in,
414. See Bible
" Seasons " (Thomson's), quoted, 328.
" Selah," history of the word, 78.
Self-communion, 238.
Sensationalism, how to silence the cry
of, 299.
Sensualist, appetite of the, 281.
Shakespeare, quoted, 358.
Shepherd, the divine, 176; history of
the word, ib.
Sick room, a motto for the, 85,
Sight, prayer for, 175.
Silent church, the, 341,
Sin, punishment of, its duration, 30.
Sinai, the Lord on, 222.
Solitude, value of, 344.
Sorrow and succour, 57 ; a vivid
picture of human, 151.
Soul-restoration, the work of God, I77»
Sovereignty of God, 41.
Spiritual declension, 333.
Stars, the great city of, 72 ; degraded
by naming them, 161 ; witnesses for
God, 223.
Stranger, when and where man is a,
357; perils of a, 359.
Sun, the, in Oriental lands, l5l.
Sweetest psalm, the, 180.
Tertullian, quoted, 199.
Thirsting for God, 197, 237.
Trees of God, the, 8.
Trouble, the day of, not an ancient
phrase, 170.
Troubled by thoughts of God, 263.
Trust, the joy of, I13.
Wanderers, an appeal to, 336.
Water, power of, 249.
brooks, panting for the, 197.
Wicked, boasting of the, 89 ; power
of, 194; the end of, 195; God's
anger against the, 229; typified by
the grass, 321 ; destiny of, 20, 398;
driven like chaff, 400; no peace to.
ib. ; sorrows of, 401 ; prosperity of,
403-
Wicked men, the cruel policy of, 98 ;
fate of, lOl ; short triumph of, 102.
Wickedness, Biblical testimony against,
31; a true delineation of, 98; an
abominable thing, 99.
Wind, sacred to the Christian, 327.
Wine, a mocker, 10.
Wings, a Hebrew metaphor, 145 ; a
figure in the New Testament, 146;
a tender figure, 237.
Wise men, result of the companionihip
of, 282.
Withered hearts, 120.
Words, poverty of, 223.
Worship and confidence, 231.
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Date Due
DEC 2 2 '59
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